


Oak and Mistletoe

by HildyJ



Series: Oak and Mistletoe [1]
Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Erebor Never Fell, Alternate Universe - Middle Earth Setting, Angst, Fairy Tale Elements, Falling In Love, First Kiss, First Meetings, Fluff, M/M, Romance, Shire AU, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-03
Updated: 2015-09-26
Packaged: 2018-03-21 02:30:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 55,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3674136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HildyJ/pseuds/HildyJ
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a life dominated by a strange form of sickness, Thorin is sent to the Shire to seek a cure only Bilbo Baggins can offer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. To Meet

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Deutsch available: [Oak and Mistletoe](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4559505) by [achildofyavanna (Minionfromthedark)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Minionfromthedark/pseuds/achildofyavanna)
  * Translation into 中文 available: [Oak and Mistletoe~橡树与槲寄生~](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5195372) by [hana0](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hana0/pseuds/hana0)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The beautiful graphic is by [sweetyavana](http://sweetyavana.tumblr.com/).

 

The first raven had come from the wizard.

Its insistent pecking interrupted Bilbo in his breakfast and he licked strawberry jam from his index finger with a sigh before unlatching the window and letting the bird inside. The claws clacked against his kitchen table as it hopped over and stood expectantly next to the plate with his half-eaten meal.

‘Alright, just hold on,’ he muttered as his fingers unknotted the rolled up message from the bony leg.

He took another bite from his toast and started to read the letter but as he scanned the few lines in Gandalf’s familiar hand, the sound of his crunchy chewing slowed steadily until he stopped completely at the final line. He knew that very little should surprise him, coming from the wizard, but this…

After swallowing with some difficulty, he sat silently as he contemplated the message.

Finally, he stood up.

‘Right.’ He closed his robe. ‘Right. First check the linen cupboard and…’

Bilbo was interrupted in his thinking at an affronted tug to his knotted belt and looked down at his bird companion. The raven gave an indignant squawk before tapping its beak against Bilbo’s plate.

‘Oh, I beg your pardon,’ Bilbo gestured to the remains of his breakfast. ‘Help yourself.’

As he watched the raven gobbling down the rest of his bacon, Bilbo started to compose a reply to the wizard in his head, though the message from Gandalf hadn’t really left any room for either refusal or acceptance of this strange proposition.

He looked down at the bird as it was sweeping its beak over the plate in search for any last crumbs of toast.

‘The wizard speaks your language, doesn’t he?’

The raven bent its head to the side, bobbing up and down twice.

‘Will you tell him…’ He tapped three times on the table in thought. ‘Tell him that I will ready the best bedroom and await the arrival of this dwarven prince at the beginning of summer,’ Bilbo finished with a decisive nod.

The raven gave a final squawk and flew out of the still-open window. It circled Bag End once before heading north to where Gandalf the Grey was currently staying during one of his many travels.

 

X—X

 

The second raven came from Erebor.

Bilbo had been making use of the sunny day to work in his garden when a croaky voice came from behind him.

‘Good morning,’ it said.

‘Good morning,’ Bilbo answered distractedly, pulling at a determined weed. ‘Fine day, isn’t it?’

‘Down here, it is. It’s a bit chillier where I usually fly.’

‘Fly?’ Bilbo abandoned his work and turned around as he rubbed the sweat from his forehead, leaving behind a smear of dirt.

The largest raven he had ever seen in his life was strutting up and down his fence, its beady eyes taking in both the small hill and the dishevelled hobbit standing in front of it.

Bilbo blinked. ‘You speak Westron?’

The bird fluttered its feathers. ‘Of course I do. I am a raven from Ravenhill, after all. We speak all the known languages of Middle Earth and some of the unknown ones as well,’ it said as it spread its wings once or twice, obviously hoping to impress this hobbit from the Shire.

Bilbo nodded, wanting to be polite to anything with claws that big and sharp. ‘And where is Ravenhill?’

‘Within the borders of the great mountain kingdom of Erebor,’ the raven said as it hopped onto a post in the fence, staring down at Bilbo from its high vantage point. ‘Thráin is my ruler and I and my kin do his bidding.’

Bilbo recognised these names from Gandalf’s letter and started to understand. ‘And what has King Thráin bid you to do here in the Shire?’

The raven puffed out its chest. ‘To tell you that he has sent his son, Crown Prince Thorin, to stay with you in your…’ It looked back at Bilbo’s home. ‘In your hole-in-the-hill. You can expect his arrival within a month.’

Bilbo bristled slightly at this description of his comfy home but he smiled tightly at the raven. ‘Thank you for telling me. And you can report back to your king that I will try to ensure that the Prince will have a restful recuperation under my roof, and I hope his stay in the Shire will give him satisfaction.’

The large, black wings extended and the raven made a few flaps, trying to gather pressure beneath them. ‘You can try, Master Baggins.’ Its feet left the fence. ‘But I’ll wager you won’t succeed.’ It took off over the meadow beneath Bilbo’s hill, its croaky voice floating back on the wind.

‘Because nothing satisfies Prince Thorin!’

 

X—X

 

Bilbo spent the next month preparing for the royal visit. Not that royalty mattered much to Shire folk, but he had always taken pride in his home, his food and his hospitality. And all three must be impeccable if they were to please this demanding prince. It wouldn’t do to let him travel back to Erebor with tales of impolite hobbits.

On the first evening of summer, precisely one month after the last raven’s visit, Bilbo was walking around his larder, looking with satisfaction at all he had prepared for his visitor: Sausages, the ripest cheeses, a bounty of fruit and greens from his own garden and even his mother’s seed cake, fresh from the oven. It had been baked especially in honour of his guest, and Bilbo hoped the prince would arrive soon; otherwise it would be nothing but a dry and flavourless husk.

Looking out of his window at the darkening road, he made the decision to start preparing the last meal of the day. If the prince still managed to arrive today, he could always quickly supplement it with some cold potatoes from luncheon, maybe make a hot potato salad with onions, and there would still be enough for two.

But the prince did not arrive in time for supper.

The fire in his sitting room was low when Bilbo gave a final glance at the path leading up to his home. All quiet. He drew back from the window and stifled a yawn before heading to his bedroom. It was too late now for anyone to knock, he thought as he pulled on his pyjamas. His head hit the pillow as he thought about what could delay a dwarf prince and his party on the road. Images of attacking animals or tempting roadside taverns were the last things dancing through his mind before he turned over and succumbed to sleep.

He didn’t know what woke him but he was awake, staring up at his ceiling. His bedroom was suffused with a golden light from a low sun. It was still early, much earlier than Bilbo, gentlehobbit of leisure that he was, liked to get out of bed. He stretched his arms above his head, grabbing hold of the pillow and fluffing it up before turning over on his side with his back to the window.

But it was no good. These warm summer mornings were not suited for sleeping in. Though his eyes were shielded, the sun still tickled his neck and his blanket became uncomfortably warm. With a sigh, he threw it back, shuffled to the side of the bed and stood up.

Bilbo yawned as he padded to the kitchen, tying the belt of his robe into a loose knot before firing up the stove.

He shut the metal door on the small flames licking up the side of a fresh log and went to the front of his home, wanting to see what the Shire looked like this early in the morning.

The rush of fresh, dewy morning air that met him as he opened the door provided a refreshing awakening after the stifling blankets of his bed. He closed his eyes and stretched, hoping to get his body and mind fully awake before starting work on his breakfast. And it looked to be another meal he would be eating alone.

As he opened his eyes, he became aware of two of his neighbours standing down the lane and staring up his home while whispering hurriedly with each other.

Bilbo frowned. Surely it wasn’t such a strange sight, him being up this early and standing outside his smial. Feeling self-conscious, he tightened the belt around his robe and made to turn back inside when he was interrupted by the sound of wood creaking coming from the left side of his door.

Ignoring the curious hobbits, he ventured down the path alongside the front and stopped dead when he saw what was sitting on his bench.

It was a dwarf, sitting upright and sleeping outside his home. Bilbo stepped closer. He had only ever seen the dwarves from the Blue Mountains at a distance, so he allowed himself to take the time to study this one. Could it be one of the prince’s party who was sent ahead to herald his lord’s arrival? The poor thing must have travelled all night, Bilbo thought as he looked down at the muddy cloak and worn boots.

The face was interesting. Dwarves were known to be a stout people, heavy with meat, beer and metal adornments. But this one’s sunken cheeks, sharp nose and simple dress spoke of a life of want. The beard was short, not the usual dwarven custom, and the hair was long but simple. No fanciful braiding or beads. Did the royal family of Erebor not treat its servants well?

Bilbo could almost feel his fingers itching to cook for this one, to feed him until some colour and pleasing plumpness returned to that sorry-looking face. When the prince arrives, he would invite him and all of his followers to a grand feast. But first he would treat this one to some much needed breakfast.

Bilbo placed a gentle hand on the broad shoulder, feeling it tense in awareness under his touch. The dwarf’s eyes twitched, opened slowly and immediately found Bilbo’s face.

In the morning sun, the blue eyes should have been beautiful. The colour should have brightened up next to the golden light, giving life to the weary face. But they remained dull and neutral, staring numbly at Bilbo before the dwarf stood up.

‘Bilbo Baggins?’ The voice was deep and even.

‘Yes,’ Bilbo said, looking up at broad figure. ‘Good morning.’

The dwarf hummed low in response as he shifted on the stony path.

Bilbo glanced over his shoulder at the two gawking hobbits who were still watching intently. And now he knew what had first drawn their attention. It wasn’t every day that a dwarf took up residence outside Bilbo Baggins’ home.

Eager to end the display, he turned back to the dwarf. ‘You must be tired from your journey. Please, come inside.’

The dwarf nodded, hoisted his pack and followed Bilbo through the door.

The entrance was cool and dark after the bright colours of the outside and Bilbo set to work helping the other off with his cloak and pack. Once he returned from hanging them in a safe place, Bilbo halted as he watched the figure of the dwarf from behind. Sharp shoulder blades seemed to tear through skin and tent the dwarf’s shirt over his back. The exposed lower arms looked strong but wiry, prominent veins snaked from pointy elbows to bony hands.

Bilbo’s eyes softened in sympathy. This dwarf needed more than a good breakfast after several months’ travel. He needed several hearty meals, care, rest, recuperation… And at that point, he suddenly recalled the choice of words in Gandalf’s letter, remembered the mention of the prince’s unknown illness.

Bilbo shook his head at his own foolishness. This was obviously the prince in question. The worn clothes and simple appearance must have been a form of protection against any robbers who would see a lone dwarven prince as an easy but profitable prize.

‘Your Highness?’ Bilbo tried to suppress his wince at the foreign-sounding formality. He didn’t think he could stand spending the whole summer with someone called _Your Highness_.

The dwarf turned to look at him. ‘Thorin,’ he corrected.

‘Oh!’ Bilbo’s shoulders dropped with a relieved sigh. ‘And you can call me Bilbo.’ He smiled widely at Thorin, feeling hopeful about the months to come.

But there was no responding smile. The dwarf nodded once, his face impassive as his eyes left the hobbit to look around the interiors.

Bilbo’s first instinct was to feel offended. A hobbit was fond of his niceties and courtesies, even if they weren’t always sincerely felt. A smile should be an easy thing to offer to the person inviting you into their home. But then he admonished himself: this prince had travelled for months, had been ill before that, and had just woken from sleeping on a wooden bench. And Bilbo knew what would soothe all his troubles.

‘Breakfast,’ he announced. ‘I already have the stove lit, so it won’t be long. Do you want to change out of your travelling clothes before then?’

‘I’ll be fine,’ Thorin said without looking at him. ‘Where did you put my pack?’

‘In your bedroom. It’s just right he– ‘ Bilbo moved to escort the dwarf down the hallway when Thorin swept past him.

‘I’ll be fine,’ he threw over his shoulder as Bilbo saw his back disappear into the best bedroom.

Well. Bilbo tugged sharply at the belt around his waist. Well.

Setting aside the rudeness of dwarves, he padded into his larder and surveyed what he could offer his guest this morning. After picking out the essentials, his eyes alighted on the seedcake, a golden dome on his mother’s favourite plate sitting on a high shelf. A fitting welcome for royalty, he thought as he carefully lifted it down and took it to be placed in the middle of his dining table before starting on breakfast.

Bilbo was just lifting the last sizzling piece of bacon out of the frying pan and on to Thorin’s plate, when the dwarf reappeared from his bedroom and stood with a hesitant air next to the table.

‘Sit down, please.’ Bilbo tried another smile before moving past the dwarf to deposit the pan in the kitchen and grabbing a plate of lightly toasted bread to take back into the dining room.

As he sat down, he poured a cup of tea for the other and gestured wordlessly for Thorin to tuck into his heaping plate of tomato and mushroom omelette with piles of bacon on top.

The dwarf nodded curtly and picked up his cutlery.

Bilbo had gotten used to eating alone after his parents’ death and was therefore accustomed to dining in silence, his thoughts more than enough company to keep him occupied. Usually they spent the time while he was eating, wandering around his memories of the day before, what he had read, what he had written, the state of his garden, and what he needed to gather during his next outing to the Old Forest. Hobbiton relied on him to keep his stores of weeds, plants and herbs fully replenished, no matter how little most hobbits liked to admit to being dependent on _Mad Baggins_.

But Bilbo soon wrenched himself away from his thoughts, remembering that he had a rare guest to entertain. He looked over at Thorin, preparing to enquire about what the dwarf wanted to do on his first day in the Shire, when he stopped short at the sight of him.

Thorin sat perfectly straight, transferring a forkful of food from his plate to his mouth. Then he chewed listlessly 4-5 times, swallowed with some effort and repeated the process all over again.

This was a strange sight to Bilbo’s eyes. Hobbits were fond of their food and took great pride in being able to cook it well and share it with others. Meals were jolly occasions, filled with obvious enjoyment of the food being eaten. It wasn’t just a senseless, mechanical chewing and swallowing. Bilbo wasn’t a proud hobbit. Not compared to most people, anyway. He did take pride in his cooking, however. Maybe the prince was used to finer things than a simple omelette.

‘It must have been exciting,’ Bilbo started, desperate to say anything to stop that mindless eating, ‘to travel all that way along the Great Road over the Misty Mountains. The sights you must have seen.’

Thorin’s fork lowered onto his plate. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘it’s a long way.’

Bilbo tried again. ‘And did you travel it all alone? I confess to being surprised at you sitting by yourself outside my home.’

‘I did. I find it to be quicker that way. No one to insist on long evenings at roadside inns and more time spent putting one foot in front of the other on the road.’

Bilbo tilted his head to the side in wonderment. ‘You take no pleasure in travel?’

‘It’s a way to get from one place to another. Nothing more.’

‘But if you spent time at the roadside inns or paused in a passing forest glade instead of simply _putting one foot in front of the other_ , you might find some enjoyment in your travels.’

Thorin looked down at his plate. ‘I doubt it.’

Bilbo leaned back in his seat, settling into the discussion. ‘Is that why you travelled through the night before arriving at my home? To end your travels sooner?’

Thorin took a short sip of his cooling tea and grimaced. ‘I didn’t travel through the night. I had planned to arrive at my destination yesterday afternoon but got lost along the eastern border of the Shire.’ He folded his arms. ‘I arrived well after dark when there was no light in your windows.’

Bilbo’s eyes widened in realization. ‘You spent the night on my bench?’

Thorin inclined his head once. ‘I did.’

Bilbo shook his head at this dwarf’s peculiarities. ‘But you could have knocked! I had a nice, soft bed all ready for you. Surely you would prefer that instead of a hard bench?’ He blinked rapidly, his astonishment plain on his face. ‘It would have been no trouble, no trouble at all.’

‘As it was no trouble for me to spend the night outside as I have done for the last months. A bed, a bench, the ground; they’re all just places to rest your head and close your eyes.’ Thorin shrugged as if that was the end of the conversation.

‘But that doesn’t make any sense!’ Bilbo was really getting agitated now. ‘You talk as if you can’t feel the difference between soft and hard, between nice and foul.’

Thorin’s shoulders stiffened. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ He pushed away from the table and stood up. ‘Thank you for breakfast. It was… filling.’

He turned around and headed back to his room with a heavy stride, leaving Bilbo behind to gawp at the empty seat and half-eaten meal abandoned by his long-awaited guest.

With jerky, abrupt movements, Bilbo stood up and cleared the table. The seed cake, which had occupied a place of pride on the table, was taken back to the larder, untouched. Out in the kitchen, he emptied Thorin’s plate into the bucket of kitchen waste which was going over to Farmer Holman’s pigs at the end of the day. What a shame it was to waste such an excellent omelette on an undiscerning animal. But, Bilbo thought as he looked over his shoulder in the direction of Thorin’s bedroom, it had also seemed to be wasted on the dwarven prince.

His thoughts whirred with his first impressions of his guest, trying to find some explanation for the odd behaviour he had experienced from Thorin. And that was when he remembered the raven’s words: that nothing satisfied the prince. Bilbo had himself discovered the truth of those words. Not the beauty of the breadth of Middle Earth, not the promise of a soft bed or a hot meal at tavern after a long day’s walk, and not even an fine breakfast cooked by Bilbo Baggins.

And then something struck him, making him abandon his work. His soapy hands dripped into the washing bowl as he contemplated this new revelation. He had heard of something like this before, but descriptions of it were mostly found in old texts from far-away lands. No one in the Shire had ever dealt with something like this.

As he wiped his hands, he made a decision about what to do. He had an experiment to perform.

Bilbo marched up to the open door of Thorin’s bedroom and called out, ‘Thorin?’

The dwarf turned around, his pack in his hands. ‘Yes?’

‘Could you come outside with me? I would like to show you something.’

Setting his pack down on his bed, he followed Bilbo through the back door, where they stopped to survey the lush back garden. To the right of the door were Bilbo’s prized rose bushes, the early morning dew melting off them and carrying their perfumed scent around the green lawn. The smell was strong, bordering on cloying, but Bilbo appreciated the beauty of the rose alongside its delightful scent.

He looked up at Thorin. ‘I want you to take a couple of deep breaths through your nose and tell me what you can smell here in my garden.’

Thorin stared back at him. ‘Is this some sort of hobbit fancy? You want me to tell you what your garden smells like?’

Bilbo smiled his most innocent smile. ‘Oblige me. Please.’

Thorin narrowed his eyes at Bilbo’s guileless face but still took a couple of steps out into the garden, pulling strong sniffs through his nose as he went.

‘Well?’ Bilbo called after him.

Thorin turned around. ‘Horse droppings,’ he said. ‘That’s all I can smell. Horse droppings,’ he finished with a nod.

‘Manure,’ Bilbo corrected, his suspicion from earlier growing stronger still. ‘It’s good for the rose bushes. You don’t smell the roses?’

Thorin shook his head.

‘Here,’ Bilbo said, leading the other over to the bushes, ‘come closer and try again.’

Thorin sniffed. ‘Still horse drop- Excuse me, _manure_.’

A cold sensation ran down Bilbo’s back. He snapped off a fully-grown rose from the bush and raised it to Thorin’s face. ‘Try again.’

Thorin inclined his head over the flower. His voice was quiet when he finally said, ‘Nothing. There’s nothing there.’

In one final desperate move, Bilbo tore a fistful of petals from the rose and crushed them between his fingers. The scent rose up to his face, sweet and spicy, before he all but threw them in Thorin’s face. ‘How about now?’

Thorin closed his eyes. ‘Nothing.’

Bilbo dropped down the rose and its petals and stepped closer, his gaze intent on Thorin. ‘Why did the wizard send you to me?’

‘Because I’ve been ill,’ Thorin said the last word with some distaste as he pursed his lips in annoyance.

‘I know. But what did he expect me to do about it?

Thorin squared his shoulders under Bilbo’s searching gaze. ‘He didn’t say.’

‘Well, of course he didn’t.’ Bilbo shook his head. ‘Haven’t you spoken to a wizard before? Ask them about the South and they’ll talk about the North. And they always have a least seven different schemes going on at once. Secret schemes, of course, because you can’t let us mortals have _any_ say when it comes to our own lives. No, that’s best left up to the wizards!’

Thorin blinked in surprise as he looked down at the small hobbit getting increasingly redder in the face. ‘Has Gandalf tricked you before?’

‘No, not as such.’ Bilbo glanced over the hedge to his nearest neighbour, wondering if Hamfast had started working in his garden yet. ‘We’d better talk about this inside,’ he said and walked away, expecting Thorin to follow.

Once inside, Bilbo sat down at his table and Thorin quickly did as well.

‘No,’ Bilbo said, continuing the conversation. ‘He never tricked me. But I’ve known him for many years and I know that he will never tell you the whole truth for reasons of his own.’ He interlaced his hands on the table in front of him. ‘And that’s why the two of us have to be completely truthful with each other if I am to help you.’

‘Truthful?’ The chair creaked as Thorin shifted, his arms folding in front of him. ‘Well, then the truth is: I am _not_ ill. Others think I am but I’m not.’

Bilbo narrowed his eyes in thought. ‘And your father is one of those people?’

‘He’s only one with the power to send me to some hobbit apothecary on the advice of a wandering wizard, so yes.’

‘Apothecary? Did Gandalf call me an apothecary?’

‘Not in so many words. But since I’ve met nothing but foreign apothecaries in the last three years, I thought you would be another one.’

‘Well,’ Bilbo said, spreading his hands out on the table, ‘just as you are _not_ ill, I am _not_ an apothecary.’

Thorin sat back in his seat. ‘What are you then?’

Bilbo moved to speak but then hesitated. Was there a term for what he was? _Mad Baggins_ was the first to spring to mind but he quickly smothered it back down. _Wise Hobbit_ seemed too grand a title and any of the words to do with medicine were insufficient.

‘I…’ Bilbo bit his lip in thought. ‘I have a library of texts filled with knowledge handed down from mothers to their children. I know how to stay a fever, how to cool a rash, how to clean a wound. I know the plants of the forest. I know what they can do for us, both good and bad. I know how to prepare them and mix them to the greatest advantage. I know concoctions and can make one for an aching head or a low mood.’

‘Witchcraft,’ Thorin breathed as he stared at the unassuming hobbit.

‘That’s one word for it.’ Bilbo looked up into Thorin’s wide eyes. ‘But not one I like to use.’

The birds chirped a merry song outside the open window as Bilbo waited for Thorin to understand what he had just been told. The dwarf seemed insensible to this, his eyes focused on Bilbo as he pondered.

When the dwarf remained silent, Bilbo started again. ‘Now, I have been truthful towards you. Maybe it’s time for you to return the favour?’

Thorin blinked, seemingly pulled away from his thoughts, and his sullen mood returned as he said, ‘I already told you. I’m here because my father is convinced that I’m ill.’

‘But you’re not?’ Bilbo raised his eyebrows. ‘So the fact that you can’t smell the scent of a rose, only the manure that grows it, that you don’t enjoy any food, and you can’t tell the difference between a feather bed and wooden bench, that’s all normal behaviour for you?’

‘It is,’ Thorin said as he looked down at the table.

‘Has it always been like that?’

‘As long as I can remember.’

‘Then…’ Bilbo floundered, his worst suspicions having been confirmed. ‘Then what gives you pleasure in life? What makes you happy?’

‘The absence of cold, of sickness, of pain.’ Thorin looked away from Bilbo’s searching gaze.

‘Oh,’ Bilbo breathed out. ‘Oh, you poor soul.’

Thorin stood up abruptly, his chair scraping noisily against the floor. ‘I did not come all this way just to be pitied by a- by a _witch_!’

Bilbo stood as well and moved around the table to grab Thorin’s hand, keeping a hold of it even as Thorin tried to walk away. ‘I offer no pity. But sympathy? Kindness? I offer those in abundance.’ He looked up into that haunted face, hoping to make this dwarf understand. ‘And I will help you. I swear that I will.’

Thorin looked down at Bilbo, his eyes tired as he studied this strange hobbit. ‘You’re not the first to say those words to me. I have become something of an object of study to the learned people of Middle Earth.’ His tone of voice held a bitter note.

‘Splendid.’ Bilbo’s lips quirked into a hint of a smile. ‘You can tell me what they have already tried, and then I’ll know what to avoid in my search for a cure.’

‘You sound awfully sure of yourself.’

‘I'm not. But I do still have hope for you.’ Bilbo squeezed Thorin’s hand. ‘Even if you don’t.’


	2. To Discover

Bilbo had always been proud of his library. Most of it had been inherited from the Baggins side of the family, full of ponderous tomes of Shire history and sensible manuals for the garden. The Tooks, on his mother’s side, had added to that a good portion of romances, fairy tales and adventures from all over Middle Earth. On top of all that, Bilbo had spent most of his adult life compiling uncommon books on plants and potions. Some of them had been given to him by Gandalf while he had himself bought others from traders travelling through the Shire, bringing texts from as far as Harad and Gondor.

It was these books he was now thumbing through, scanning the pages hungrily for anything even resembling Thorin’s symptoms.

Bilbo looked up from the desk and over his shoulder at the dwarf who was sitting in an armchair behind him. ‘What about music? Can you find any enjoyment in that?

Thorin shook his head. ‘No. I see how it can bring others to tears or how it almost impels them to move their feet, but I’ve never felt anything like that.’

Bilbo turned more fully around in his seat. ‘And it’s always been like that for you? Music, food, any physical comforts, they’ve never brought you joy?’

‘Never. Not even as a child.’

Bilbo frowned. ‘And has this,’ he moved one hand in an aimless manner, ‘sort of problem ever affected any other in your family?’

‘Yes. Something similar.’ Thorin closed his eyes shortly. ‘My grandfather, at least so I’m told. I never knew him.’

‘He died before you were born?’

‘In a manner of speaking. He disappeared into his treasure hold and left the ruling of Erebor to my father.’

‘Disappeared?’ Bilbo’s mind quickly supplied him with images of a grand hall, the size of the Old Forest at least, with a multitude of pillars like tree trunks and the floor covered with gold and gems like so many mushrooms and moss. But there would be no light in there, only the one found deep within the precious stones. Yes, he thought, one could definitely lose one’s way in such a place.

‘The hoard consumed him,’ Thorin said, interrupting Bilbo’s imaginings, ‘He could think of little else but spending his time alone with his treasure. Nothing else in life gave him the same kind of pleasure as walking among the gold did, not food, not music, not the sight of his grandchildren’s faces.’ Thorin’s tone of voice grew bitter. ‘His stays in there became longer and longer, turning into weeks and months, until he just never came back out. One day, my father went to look for him in there, to try to reason with him once again.’ Thorin paused and looked away from Bilbo. ‘I’ll spare you the details of the state in which he found my grandfather. But one dwarf could have easily carried his desiccated body to the funeral pyre. It was only out of respect for his once proud station that he was given the usual eight attendants.’

A chilly wind seemed to come from the open window, making Bilbo shiver where he sat. He stared hard at the dwarf, unable to look away even if he had tried.

Thorin swallowed. ‘We call it Dragon Sickness. When you crave gold and treasure above all other things.’ He looked down at his hands. ‘When all the joy of life is taken from you by that vile disease.’

Bilbo pushed away from his chair and stepped closer to Thorin, speaking softly to his bent head. ‘And you fear you will end up the same way as your grandfather? That you’ve already started on that journey?’

Cold, blue eyes snapped up to Bilbo’s face, flashing with more emotion that the hobbit had seen so far from Thorin. ‘I am not my grandfather,’ he said with a low tone of voice, his body tensing in Bilbo’s comfortable armchair.

Instinctively, Bilbo raised his hands in front of him in some attempt at defence. ‘No, of course not.’

‘I don’t desire gold at the cost of life,’ Thorin’s hands grabbed at the armrests, making the wood groan beneath the thick stuffing. ‘I’ve never abandoned my duties and my family for treasure.’ His voice grew rougher as his chest heaved with each breath.

Bilbo stared at the agitated dwarf who was almost snarling with anger in the middle of his cosy library. He had learnt as a fauntling that you should keep away from injured wild animals, no matter how much you wanted to help them. They were more likely to bite you than blithely accept your well-meaning assistance. They had no reason to trust you and would do everything in their power to run away.

But Thorin was not an animal, and Bilbo would not allow him to flee from this. 

‘But,’ he said slowly, still not backing away from the dwarf, ‘you were the one who compared your affliction to what your grandfather suffered?’

‘Because that’s what I’ve been told all my life.’ Thorin’s shoulders relaxed a fraction as he sat back and rubbed a hand across his brow. ‘That I carry my grandfather’s curse. That my life has been made abnormal by his sickness.’ He stopped and looked up at Bilbo, almost pleading him to understand. ‘But how can it be abnormal when I have known nothing else?’

Bilbo’s eyes softened as he looked down at Thorin, his resolve to help stronger than ever before. ‘You called it Dragon Sickness?’ he asked as he padded back to his desk to make a note, wanting to give Thorin a moment to calm himself.

He heard a heavy breath being blown out slowly before Thorin answered, ‘Yes.’

‘Maybe I can find something about it in one of my books,’ Bilbo said, lifting heavy tomes around on his desk in search of anything to do with dragons, gold or dwarves.

‘It would be a waste of your time.’ Thorin stood up and joined Bilbo at the desk. ‘It seems every potions-maker and wise woman of Middle Earth has tried to cure my _Dragon Sickness_ , using many of the same books that you have here,’ he said, his fingers tapping against the table.

Bilbo sighed, letting a heavy book drop down from his arms. ‘What did Gandalf say? Surely, he must have offered you and your father some council?’

‘He did.’ Thorn lifted his head and looked into Bilbo’s eyes. ‘He said to come to you.’

Bilbo held his gaze. ‘What did he say about me?’

‘That hobbits saw the world differently than other folk, and that no one had a more original view than Bilbo Baggins of the Shire.’

‘Original view…’ Bilbo muttered with a small shake of his head. ‘What did I tell you about wizards? They do so revel in their mystery.’

Thorin nodded and looked away, his chest still moving a bit too quickly from his earlier outburst. Bilbo wanted to place a calming hand on his back, wanted the pads of his fingers to brush softly over Thorin’s sharp shoulder blades, wanted the warmth of his skin to soothe Thorin in his troubled state. But Thorin would only feel five fingers and a palm touching him, nothing more. So Bilbo let his hand stay by his own side.

‘Well,’ he said as he rolled back and forth on the balls of his feet. ‘I need to think more on this and I need to stretch my legs. Care to join me for a walk?’

‘A walk? No, I’d better start writing my letters back to Erebor. It is expected of me.’

‘Suit yourself. My neighbour to the right, Hamfast Gamgee, keeps carrier pigeons if you want to send anything off while I’m gone.’

Having no need for a coat on this warm day, Bilbo only grabbed his walking stick before heading out the door. He stopped briefly on the first step, gazing out over the landscape in front of him. More years ago than anyone cared to remember, a prosperous mayor of Hobbiton had left one of his unused fields to fallow. The soil must have been particularly fertile because before the year was done, it had been overgrown with a multitude of plants, weeds and flowers; a bit of wildness within the orderly borders of Bilbo’s neighbourhood. 

He set off down the lane, his stick dragging through the edge of the ditch running alongside the meadow. Birds coming from all over Middle Earth often dropped seeds here, leaving behind fledgling, exotic plants right outside his front door. 

But right now his mind was too occupied with the matter of Thorin to take much notice of his surroundings.

The tranquil beauty of Hobbiton passed him by in a blur, as all his thoughts were of a single dwarf in a massive treasure hold. In Bilbo’s mind the dwarf looked like an elderly version of Thorin, skin sagging over a bony frame and weighed down by a multitude of adornments in precious metals and stones. As he was shuffling through the stony hall, suddenly a mass of coins rose up around his feet, like the tide coming back to shore. More and more gold gathered around his shins, his knees. If he had moved, if he had done anything to get away, maybe he would have been saved. But the dwarf stood still, his peaceful face the last thing visible before the coins overpowered him completely.

Bilbo made a sudden broad swipe with his walking stick, listening to its satisfactory whistle through the air. If only he knew where the wizard was keeping himself right now. If only he could get some message to him, asking him what he meant by sending this unhappy dwarf to stay with Bilbo over the summer.

‘A more original view…,’ Bilbo mumbled as he came to a stand still on the opposite side of the meadow from his home. He stared down at the ground, deep in thought, the tip of his walking stick making random shapes in dirt in front of him.

‘A view...’ Bilbo muttered to himself, still musing on Thorin’s words, ‘…Bilbo Baggins of the Shire.’

A gaggle of fauntlings passed him in the lane, giggling to each other about _Mad Baggins_ , who looked to be in deep conversation with the dirt beneath his feet. He took no notice of them, his mind filled with riddles.

‘Hobbits see the world differently…’ What do hobbits see around them that others don’t? We’re closer to the ground than others, Bilbo thought, his stick still drawing through the soil in the ditch. And we like growing things. He raised his head and looked around him but saw nothing, his mind still working furiously. Is that the solution, Gandalf? Is that how I can help Thorin? But what should I grow?

He looked back at his smial, the colour of the door still vibrant even though it was surrounded on all sides by greenery. He’d left the window in his study open, allowing bird song and the fresh smell from his garden to suffuse his home. But it would all be lost on the dwarf currently writing a letter at Bilbo’s desk.

‘The view of Bilbo Baggins,’ he said slowly, as he looked across the meadow to his home, an idea forming in his head. He took a couple of steps to right, wanting to create a straight line between himself and the green, round door. Once he was satisfied with his position, he looked around to see what that view contained. 

As he turned on the spot, he spotted a great oak next to the crossroad with one way going to the Party Field and another leading down to the Brandywine River. 

Bilbo stepped closer to the tree and circled it, searching the bark of the trunk with his hands as he looked up at the large crown. Suddenly, his eyes caught a glimpse of a small spot of yellow among the dark green. He almost hugged the trunk as he strained his neck to make out what was hiding at the bottom of one of the larger branches. And then the wind picked up, shook some leaves to the side and he saw it.

‘Summer mistletoe,’ he breathed. A rare sight in the Shire and this one was only a small plant with one solitary berry, a little sun resting on the brown bark of the tree.

Bilbo leant his back against the trunk, trying to remember what he knew about the properties of mistletoe. It was a pretty parasite, and it had now attached itself to this oak, sucking the life out of it. A well-fed berry of the mistletoe was therefore a great force in life potions. If you want your prized cow to breed, if you want your barren land to give you bushels of wheat next year, if you want to enliven a low mood, then you would need a concoction of mistletoe.

Bilbo craned his neck back and looked up at the mottled sunshine on the leaves of the tree. Was this what Gandalf had pointed to with his riddling words? That Thorin needed some sort of life potion from the mistletoe?

Making a decision, Bilbo turned around and stretched to grab hold of the lowest branch. With his right foot against the trunk, he was able to pull himself up until he was sitting on the sturdy appendage. From there, all he needed to do was reach out his arm and pluck the single berry from the mistletoe plant. Its flesh felt springy between his fingers and a little juice oozed out from the top. He let it tumble down in his waistcoat pocket before jumping nimbly off the branch and landing securely on his large feet. Picking up his walking stick, he turned down the path leading home with a quick pace.

Bilbo barged through the door, flinging his stick down as he moved quickly through the smial to the library. The sharp sound of it hitting the wooden floor brought Thorin out from his bedroom and he looked oddly at the hobbit hurrying past him, still muttering about the life force of plants.

He knew just the book he wanted, the one that might give him some answers. A red volume on the bottom shelf, Bilbo had bought it from a travelling merchant who had passed through one of the great cities of Gondor, where he had come by this singular text. _A Natural History of the Plants of Middle Earth_ was an inconspicuous title but Bilbo knew this went far beyond a mere listing of every kind of potato and their regions of origin. This book had been written by a learned scholar with an open mind for the kind of knowledge which had been passed down from parent to child since before there were such things as quills and books; the knowledge about the secret powers of plants.

Bilbo paid no mind to Thorin standing silently in the entrance into his study, his mind and hands busy with the task at hand. He soon found the pages concerning mistletoe and started reading.

‘Did you discover anything on your walk?’ Thorin took two steps into the room, his eyes focused on the back of Bilbo’s head.

Bilbo hummed as his eyes greedily swept down the page.

Thorin came to stand next to Bilbo at the desk, looking down at the open book. ‘Any new ideas?’

‘I think so…’ Bilbo turned the page, finally getting to the relevant part. The words _oak_ , _mistletoe_ , and _sensibility_ seemed to be highlighted in front of him as his eyes rushed through the sentences as quickly as they could.

Thorin shifted next to him and cleared his throat. ‘And they are…?’

Bilbo blinked as his thoughts were torn away from the words on the page. He glanced over his shoulder at Thorin. ‘Could you just leave me alone while I read?’ he said shortly, dismissing the dwarf with a look.

Thorin sniffed loudly and squared his shoulders. ‘I’ll be in my bedroom,’ he said and walked out, his boots heavy on the floor.

When Bilbo had finished the chapter on Mistletoe and its properties, he sat back in his chair, his eyes coming to rest on the open window into his study. Everything suddenly seemed so simple, so easy that he was inclined to disbelieve what he had just read. But the teachings of this text had never failed him before.

He closed the book and stood, his fingers tapping some random rhythm against his thigh as he thought about how to tell Thorin what needed to be done.

Bilbo moved silently down the hallway until he stood before the half-open door to Thorin’s room. With a single knuckle, he knocked once before entering to see Thorin standing aimlessly next to the bed. The dwarf looked up at Bilbo’s entrance.

‘Finished reading?’ he asked as he folded his arms across his chest.

‘Yes.’ Bilbo swallowed in preparation for what he had to say. ‘And now I’m certain that I’ve found the answer to how to cure your affliction.’

‘Oh?’ Thorin raised one brow, seemingly unconvinced about Bilbo’s breakthrough.

Bilbo fished into his waistcoat pocket, his nimble fingers catching the small berry. He pulled it out, letting it roll down into the palm of his hand and presented it to the other.

Thorin looked down. ‘A berry?’

Bilbo nodded. ‘From a summer mistletoe which has fed on an oak tree.’

‘And that will help me to find pleasure in life? Eating a small berry?’ Thorin scoffed and turned his gaze to the wall behind Bilbo.

‘Not eating it, no,’ Bilbo said, depositing the berry carefully back in his pocket. ‘It will need to be squeezed into a bottle of distilled wine with a selection of other plants, wormwood, sage and poppy, just to name a few. The drink should be left to stew for two days and two nights and then,’ he hesitated, trying to catch Thorin’s eyes, ‘Then _I_ will drink a small glass before the first part of your treatment.’

Thorin’s attention snapped back to Bilbo. ‘You will drink it? Do hobbit-healers usually need to be tipsy before working their witchcra- whatever you call it?’

Bilbo pressed his lips together in annoyance. ‘It’s to do with the particular life force of the mistletoe. To give you back the total use of your – as the book calls it – your _outward wits_ , the treatment will need to be distributed carefully and in five stages. Too much at once will overwhelm you and surely drive you mad with so many aspects of the world opening up to you. And because the life force comes from a mistletoe berry, it will need to be given with,’ Bilbo paused and now it was his turn to look away before finishing, ‘it needs to be given with a kiss.’

A great breath left Thorin as if he had been struck in the middle of his chest. ‘A kiss?’ His wide eyes watched Bilbo carefully, as if he was searching for any sign of a hobbit joke.

Bilbo nodded, his fingers fiddling with a loose thread from his waistcoat. ‘Well, five kisses, to be exact. One to restore each of the five senses.’

Thorin blinked once, twice before turning away from Bilbo. He sat down on his bed, his long hair falling down from his shoulder and covered the side of his face from Bilbo’s gaze. The muscles in his arms strained as his hands pushed against his knees; like his body was warring with itself between curling up on the bed and standing up to react to what Bilbo had told him. But for now he sat still, his body tense as thoughts obviously whirled through his head.

Bilbo moved to say something but stopped himself, wanting to allow Thorin to think about his decision in peace. 

Finally, Thorin straightened his back and sat back, resting his hands on his thighs. ‘Well,’ he started, ‘since the finest potion-makers of Middle Earth have spent years pouring outlandish concoctions down my throat and none of them have given me anything but a stomach ache,’ he said slowly as he looked up at Bilbo, ‘I suppose five kisses won’t hurt me.’ He nodded decisively though his eyes still seemed to search Bilbo’s face for any hint of mockery.

Bilbo offered him a small smile. ‘I’ll get started on the potion then.’ He turned around to leave.

‘Do you truly believe it will work?’ Thorin’s voice coming from behind him stopped Bilbo by the door.

Bilbo looked back. ‘Yes. I do.’ 

Thorin shook his head as he pushed his hair back over his shoulder. ‘It just sounds so ridiculous… I mean, healing kisses…’

Bilbo shrugged his shoulders. ‘Life can be ridiculous sometimes.’

‘I wouldn’t know,’ Thorin muttered before adding, ‘How long will it be?’

‘Two days and t-‘

‘No, I meant, how long until you’ve given me all my senses back?’

As he took one step back into the room, Bilbo said, ‘As long as you need to adjust to all of them. And we’ll do it slowly. Remember, we’ve got all summer together.’


	3. To Taste

On the morning of the third day after his discovery about the mistletoe, the first thing Bilbo did was to take down his brewing concoction from a shelf in his larder. The bottle felt heavy in his hands as he carried it into the kitchen, minding his step on the way. He placed it gently on the counter, closer to the wall than to the edge, and went to find a decanter, a funnel and a fine cotton cloth for sieving before starting the filtering process.

He poured it slowly down into the glass decanter, watching the wilted remains of the herbs and plants pile up on the cloth over the funnel. As he tilted the bottle to get the final drops, the mistletoe berry tumbled out, landing squarely in the nest created in the funnel. Bilbo had already squeezed its juice into the potion before dumping the rest of it in with it, but now it had shrivelled up, a tiny pale husk of what it had been on the oak. The mistletoe had given up its life force.

Bilbo folded the cloth around the residue of the plants, squeezing it for any remaining liquid, before dropping a stopper into the decanter. He lifted it up to the sunshine coming from the window, wanting to look at the final product. The colour of the liquid was a pale yellow, most likely from the wormwood, and the consistency was not unlike any other distilled wine. As he moved the decanter back and forth, the liquid clung to the sides of it, receding more slowly than water would have done.

As he studied his work, he heard heavy footsteps coming from behind him.

‘Is that it?’ Thorin’s low voice moved closer as the dwarf came to stand next to Bilbo at the counter.

‘Yes,’ Bilbo said as he put the potion down again.

‘It doesn’t look like much.’

‘Enough for five mouthfuls.’

Thorin hummed and sat down at the kitchen table, spreading his hands in front of him on the worn wood. Bilbo could hear his heavy boots shifting on the stone floor of the kitchen behind him as he placed the decanter aside and pulled out a pan from the cupboard.

‘What are you doing?’ Thorin asked.

‘Making breakfast,’ Bilbo said as he went past him out into the larder. The cold potatoes from the day before would do excellently, just needed to be fried crispy. And maybe some scrambled eggs as well.

‘I can see that.’ Thorin said as he moved back in his seat with a sudden movement, the legs of his chair scraping over the floor. ‘I mean, why are you doing that now?’

‘I usually have breakfast in the mornings.’ Bilbo said as he walked back into the kitchen, balancing two eggs in one hand and the bowl of potatoes in the crook of his elbow. ‘Are you sure you don’t want me to make some for you as well?’

‘No, thank you. I still have some waybread in my pack that needs eating.’ 

Bilbo swallowed drily in an instinctive response as he remembered from a couple of days ago when Thorin had showed him what he had eaten on the road instead of visiting inns and taverns. It was a small, nearly-white square of dry bread. Bilbo had tried a small bite of it, immediately feeling his tongue sticking to his teeth as all the moisture disappeared from his mouth. The taste was non-existent, the texture was unpleasant, and the best thing Thorin had to say about it, was that it didn’t spoil in his pack and that it was _filling_. 

Thorin tapped his fingers against the table and made a disgruntled sound as he watched the hobbit cut the potatoes into thick slices before placing them gently in the pan, listening to the butter sizzle.

‘I thought you said the drink was ready after two days and two nights?’ Thorin tried again after a while. The tapping on the table picked up the pace and grew louder.

Bilbo turned over the potatoes, pleased with the golden colour. ‘I did.’

‘Then drink the blasted thing, kiss me and let’s get the disappointment over with!’ The tapping stopped as Thorin ran an abrupt hand over his hair, his fingers tangling near one of his braids. He pulled them roughly away, taking with them a few hairs which had snagged in his heavy ring.

Bilbo lifted the potatoes from the pan and onto his plate before turning around to answer Thorin. ‘Disappointment?’

‘Yes, disappointment.’ Thorin sighed heavily. ‘I don’t mean any slight against your good intentions or your- or your skill. But I’ve had to get my hopes up so many times. I have had to see my family, my father especially, beaming expectantly at me once I had swallowed the last drops of a bitter potion or once some _sorcerer_ had finished chanting some words at me. And every time – each and every time – I’ve had to disappoint them.’ Thorin rubbed a hand across his eyes. ‘And I know that every time the hope left my father’s eyes, he secretly blamed me. For not being strong enough to fight and defeat whatever this,’ his hands gestured stiffly at his own body, ‘whatever this is.’ His voice grew quiet as he finished.

Bilbo floundered, not quite knowing what to say to such an outburst. So he decided to stick to what he knew best. He padded silently to stand next to Thorin’s tense shoulder which jerked when he placed a light hand on it. The dwarf looked up at him, a deep line travelling from the middle of his forehead down between his eyebrows.

Bilbo gave a small smile. ‘Do you want me to show you how to make the best scrambled eggs in all of Middle-earth?’

Thorin blinked. ‘What?’

‘Come on,’ Bilbo said, giving a small push to Thorin’s back. ‘Let me show you.’

Thorin stood up and followed Bilbo to the stove, his feet shuffling hesitantly over the floor.

‘So, most people will tell you to melt the butter while you whisk the eggs together in a bowl. Don’t do that.’ Bilbo cracked one egg and then the other directly into the pan before adding a nub of butter. ‘Just chuck it all in at once and start stirring while you heat it.’ He gestured for Thorin to step closer as he got started on the eggs.

Thorin looked up from the yolks being broken by Bilbo’s brisk spatula to stare at the hobbit standing next to him. Bilbo’s face was intent on his work, his lazily tied morning robe slowly opening with the constant movement of his arm.

‘And as soon as you notice the eggs becoming the least bit firm,’ Bilbo continued, ignorant of Thorin’s study of him, ‘you immediately take the pan from the heat, you see? But never stop stirring.’

Thorin looked away from Bilbo’s curls to the pan. ‘Is it done then?’

‘No, but it’s still cooking, see? Keep it off the heat for a moment or two and then,’ Bilbo said as he lifted the pan back on the stove. ‘You put it back on the heat, still stirring.’

Thorin looked down at the yellow mass, slowly gathering into soft peaks.

‘And back off again,’ Bilbo said, lifting the pan from the stove.

‘And then back on again?’ Thorin asked after a moment.

Bilbo smiled up at him. ‘You’re learning! Yes, one more time will do it, I think,’ he said, putting down the pan.

‘Why are you teaching me this?’ Thorin shook his head. ‘You must know that it’s wasted on me?’

‘Because,’ Bilbo said, looking at the egg fluffing up, ‘when you have the full use of your senses back, I don’t want you to spend your life eating mediocre scrambled eggs. A lot of people don’t know how to make them properly, you know. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been served dry, yellow flakes and been told it’s scrambled eggs.’

The eggs were close to gathering and Bilbo took it off one more time, stirring the mass until he felt it had the right consistency. 

‘And now we have to stop it cooking,’ he said. ‘Could you pass me the butter from the counter?’

Thorin turned around to scoop up the small dish and knife and held it out for the other to take.

Bilbo fished the knife from Thorin’s grip, his other hand still holding the pan. ‘Just hold still,’ he said as he sliced a large nub, his hand brushing Thorin’s as he did, and flicked it into the pan. As the cool butter melted and mixed, the eggs stopped cooking completely, leaving behind a delicious mass of yellow velvet.

‘Once you’re better,’ Bilbo said, as he scooped the eggs onto the plate with the potatoes, ‘I hope you’ll share a meal of scrambled eggs with me. It really is something to be savoured with all your senses.’ He scraped the pan clean.

‘ _If_ I get better,’ Thorin muttered as he sat down on the other side of the kitchen table, watching Bilbo sit down as well and begin salting his breakfast.

‘When you get better,’ Bilbo corrected, taking the first bite.

‘You sound awfully sure,’ Thorin said. ‘So why can’t you drink that yellow concoction now?’

‘Because,’ Bilbo began before swallowing a mouthful. ‘Because I need all morning to prepare what you’ll need after that first kiss.’

Thorin’s eyes widened. ‘What? What will I need? Why do you need so much time?’

Bilbo looked down at his plate, trying to hide his amusement at the dwarf’s obvious and terrifying suspicions about the potency of a hobbit’s kiss, before looking back up.

‘You must give me some time to prepare one of the best meals ever served in Bag End. I wouldn’t want to disappoint your burgeoning taste buds.’

‘Taste…’ Thorin trailed off. ‘You’re going to try to start with taste?’

Bilbo swallowed another bite and nodded. ‘It seemed to be the most easily managed sense. It wouldn’t overwhelm you all at once, like sight or hearing.’

Thorin licked his lips. ‘When will we do it, then?’

‘Just in time for luncheon,’ Bilbo answered before popping a golden slice of potato in his mouth.

 

X—X

 

Bilbo was sure he heard the legs of his dining table groan when he placed the final bowl on it. The entire surface was covered with plates, bowls, platters and jugs, all of them filled with the best that Bilbo’s kitchen and garden could boast. A lot of it was produce; berries, fruits and vegetables, easy and simple flavours for Thorin to begin with. But Bilbo had also produced a large steak and mushroom pie with a golden crust, a freshly-baked seedcake to replace the one wasted on Thorin’s first meal in Bag End, and a large loaf of sourdough bread with various cheeses.

As he looked up from his admiration of a full morning’s work, Bilbo spotted Thorin lurking just outside the dining room, shifting from one foot to the other.

Bilbo smiled. ‘Come in, come in! It’s all ready now.’

Thorin allowed himself to be lead by the small hobbit to sit at the top of the table, gazing down at the frankly intimidating display of hobbit cooking.

‘What if—,’ Thorin swallowed hard as he looked up at Bilbo. ‘What if it doesn’t work? You’ll have wasted all this food for nothing.’

Bilbo scoffed. ‘Not for nothing. Most of it will keep very well in the larder or the cool cellar, and I can offer the rest of it to my neighbours, Hamfast and Bell Gamgee and their six children. They’d go through all of this within a day or so. And besides,’ He said as he turned to take the decanter and a small glass from a side cupboard. ‘It _will_ work.’

Thorin made no reply as he warily watched Bilbo pour a small amount of the yellow liquid into the glass and raise it to his mouth.

Bilbo could feel a slight tremor in his hand and steadied it through sheer force of will. Despite his assurances to Thorin, there was always a hint of nerves whenever a new potion was to be consumed. Had the text been properly translated? Had he read it correctly? Had he forgotten anything in the process? Had the potion been somehow contaminated? All these questions worried at the edges of his mind as he closed his eyes and drained the glass. He detected a strong bitterness with a hint of earthy soil before swallowing the potion down.

He opened his eyes to see Thorin looking up at him from his place at the table, a tightness around his eyes giving away hints of worry. ‘How do you feel?’ Thorin asked.

Bilbo nodded quickly. ‘Fine,’ he said though he was acutely aware of his body, waiting for any sign of unrest. ‘Fine.’

He breathed deeply before stepping closer to Thorin. ‘And now for the second part.’

‘Oh,’ Thorin glanced away. ‘Right.’

‘Just…’ Bilbo hesitated next to Thorin’s chair. ‘Look up at me?’

‘Right.’ Thorin raised his head, his eyes coming to rest on Bilbo’s face.

‘Right,’ Bilbo said, licking his lips before hunching his shoulders over to reach Thorin’s mouth. The first thing he came into contact with was Thorin’s nose, bumping into Bilbo’s soft cheek and making him move back with a small jerk. They both mumbled quick apologies before angling their faces slightly and finally touching their mouths together.

It was barely a kiss. More like a brush of dry lips against dry lips while Thorin kept his eyes open, staring blindly at Bilbo’s forehead. Bilbo’s hands were held awkwardly in front of him, not wanting to lean against Thorin’s shoulders or his chair. He started to feel a twinge in his lower back from standing so stiffly and disengaged from Thorin’s unmoving mouth, taking a couple of steps away as he did.

Thorin ducked his head, licking his lips as he looked down at the empty plate in front of him.

‘Did you feel anything happening?’ Bilbo asked as he sat down next to him.

‘There was… something.’ Thorin narrowed his eyes in thought. ‘A small itching sensation, not exactly painful. I could feel it inside my mouth.’ He shrugged. ‘But I might just have been imagining it.’

Bilbo nodded. ‘That’s promising. Now,’ he said and looked over the table. ‘what should we have you try first?’

Thorin drew in a deep breath. ‘I have no idea. There so much of it.’

‘I think we should start with something simple,’ Bilbo said he picked up a small bowl of strawberries. They had just been picked from his garden and still retained some of the sun’s heat under their skin. He held it out for Thorin to pick one. ‘Strawberries.’

Gingerly holding the small fruit between two fingers, Thorin looked up at Bilbo. ‘And if it doesn’t work?’

‘Then there are more books in my library and more plants in my stores. We’ll just try again until we get it right,’ Bilbo said and gestured for Thorin to take a bite of his chosen berry.

Thorin opened his mouth and placed the strawberry between his teeth, closing them to take a bite. 

And then his eyes widened.

It felt like a long-shut door opening up to the world outside and the strong sunlight was streaming in, almost overwhelming Thorin with its intensity. He closed his eyes, allowing himself to be immerged into these new sensations. It was like every inch of his tongue stood at attention, pricking up only to be smoothed back down by this marvellous flavour. His mouth watered and he swallowed with a gulp, sweeping the small bite of the strawberry around his mouth and down his throat.

Bilbo could feel his own shoulders sag with relief at this obvious display, and he couldn’t stop himself grinning when he saw the almost euphoric expression on Thorin’s face.

‘How is it?’

Thorin opened his eyes and stared at Bilbo. ‘It’s- it’s- I can’t describe it.’ He quickly pushed the rest of strawberry into his mouth, chewing quickly; seemingly afraid that what he was experiencing would disappear if he didn’t hurry.

‘Another?’ Bilbo held out the bowl, still smiling.

Thorin grabbed four berries and stuffed them into his mouth, his cheeks bulging out like a greedy squirrel.

Bilbo laughed then and took a strawberry for himself, savouring it slowly as he observed Thorin coming to grips with what he was experiencing. 

‘Do you like strawberries, then?’ 

Thorin chewed and swallowed his mouthful. ‘They’re… I lack the words.’

‘Well, you could call the taste fruity, or fresh, or summery, but basically they’re sweet.’

‘Sweet…,’ Thorin murmured, ‘I think I like sweet.’

‘Good. Then you should try these small tomatoes.’ Bilbo held out another bowl and Thorin picked one out, popping it into his mouth immediately.

Thorin chewed quickly, his eyes blinking as he came to grips with another flavour. ‘Yes, this one’s sweet as well. But there’s something else. Something that tickles the tongue.’

‘Sourness. Tomatoes have a bit of sourness to contrast the sweet. But they’re not completely sour like, for example, lemons.’

‘Lemons? Do you have any?’ Thorin looked up into Bilbo’s face, his eagerness barely concealed.

‘Well, not here but there’s some in my larder. I didn’t think you’d want to eat lemons for your first real meal.’

‘Please?’ Thorin leaned forward. ‘I’d like to try them. I want to try it all.’

‘As you wish,’ Bilbo said as he stood up with a smile to fetch them.

For the next hour, Bilbo and Thorin sampled a bit of every piece of fruit and vegetable available in Bilbo’s smial and garden. Bilbo helped give Thorin the words to describe what he was tasting, while thoroughly enjoying Thorin’s astounded expression every time he discovered a new combination of flavours. They then moved on to the bread and cheeses, sampled a bit of the seedcake and drank cups of milk, apple cider and wine before ending it all with a large slice of steak and mushroom pie.

Thorin gazed down at the golden, buttery crust and the creamy sauce filled with large chunks of meat and mushroom spilling out of the slice.

‘It’s incredible.’ He looked up at Bilbo, his eyes soft. ‘For the first time in my life, I’m actually looking forward to eating what’s on my plate.’

‘Then let’s hope my pie lives up to your expectations,’ Bilbo answered with a grin, picking up his knife and fork to get started on his own slice.

‘No, I mean- Thank you. So much.’ Thorin shook his head in wonder. ‘Even if the other four stages should fail, I would still be eternally indebted to you for what you have given me here today.’

‘I’m owed a debt by a dwarven prince of Erebor?’ Bilbo gestured at himself with the tongs of his fork, widening his eyes for dramatic effect. ‘I must think long and hard on the best way to collect that debt. How much of your father’s kingdom are you willing to give up in exchange for a slice of steak and mushroom pie?’

Thorin picked a piece of flaky crust from his pie. ‘You’re teasing me.’

‘Yes, I am.’ Bilbo put down his cutlery and reached out to lay his hand on Thorin’s forearm which was resting on the table between them. ‘But it pleases me immensely to see you like this, even if it’s just to satisfy my own pride in my cooking. I can’t tell what a blow it suffered that first morning when you didn’t appreciate that fine omelette I had cooked for you.’

‘Will you cook it for me again? Before I leave?’

Bilbo smiled. ‘Of course.’ He patted Thorin’s arm once and returned to his plate. ‘Now, let’s see if this one’s to your liking as well.’

Thorin took a bite. ‘Oh.’ And another bite. ‘Remember how you had trouble saying what flavour the cheeses were? Well, this is the same. It’s not sweet, not bitter, not sour, nor salty, but it’s delicious. The crust tastes like the butter I had with the bread but the filling is some indefinable good.’

‘I think _meaty_ is the closest word I can come up with,’ Bilbo said as he chased a piece of mushroom around his plate with a fork. ‘And there’s thyme in there, as well.’

‘Thyme?’ Thorin said before stuffing a forkful of pie in his mouth.

Bilbo chewed and swallowed. ‘One of the herbs from my garden. It’s very good in any cooked meat dishes.’

‘Like the basil you said that I must try together with the tomatoes?’

‘Yes.’ Bilbo nodded. ‘Once your nose gets fixed, I’ll take you through all the herbs in my garden and the spices in my stores. And you can taste them and smell them to your heart’s desire until you learn all their names.’

‘Will that be the next one? Scent?’ Thorin took another bite, his eyes never leaving Bilbo.

‘I don’t know. It might be too much for you this early on. You can’t shut it off like you can with taste.’

Thorin nodded in understanding and they ate in silence for a while after that, Bilbo thoroughly enjoying the small sounds of satisfaction coming from Thorin’s side of the table before the dwarf finally scraped his plate, trying to get every last bit of his meal into his mouth.

Bilbo stood up then and began to clear the table. Most of the vegetables and fruits could go back in the larder with the seedcake and the bread. The rest of the pie would go to the Gamgees. Because Bilbo had the sudden urge to cook all his recipes for Thorin, wanting to show him everything that food could be. The lunch they had just had was only the tip of the iceberg, a slow start for Thorin’s budding palate. So the Gamgees would enjoy the steak and mushroom pie, and Bilbo was free to make whatever he wanted for supper tonight.

When he returned from the larder, Bilbo paused in the doorway as he spied Thorin stopping in the middle of piling up empty dishes to look down at the last bit of the matured cheddar. He hesitated then quickly snatched it from its dish and pressed it into his mouth. The large chunk distorted his right cheek and he chewed quickly, probably hoping to have finished before Bilbo came back.

Bilbo padded to the dining table and stood next to him, innocently gazing up at Thorin. The dwarf stopped the movement of his jaw and looked away as he swallowed with some difficulty. A touch of red spread over his cheeks as he kept his gaze averted from Bilbo, busying himself with stacking the last plates.

But Bilbo would have none of it. ‘Are you sure you’re not a particularly tall hobbit, Thorin?’

Thorin looked back at Bilbo as his brows rose with curiosity, his hand slowly putting down the last dish.

Bilbo continued, ‘Because it has always been the custom of hobbits to have the last part of their meals while they’re clearing the table. It’s often the tastiest bit.’ He cut a thick wedge of one of the hard cheeses, popped it in his mouth, picked up the stacked dishes and walked away into the kitchen.

Thorin stared after him for a moment before picking up the dish with the pie and following him, his middle feeling warm and filled as he moved down the cosy hallway of Bag End.

 

X—X

 

After they had cleaned up, Bilbo offered Thorin some of his home-brewed ale to drink while they sat on the bench outside Bag End.

As he looked at the brown drink in his cup, Thorin said, ‘Home-brewed ale? Where did you brew it? In your witch’s cauldron?’ The corners of his mouth lifted hesitantly as he looked at Bilbo next to him on the bench, hoping the hobbit understood his jest.

Bilbo exhaled a short laugh. ‘Ah, yes. And it’s full of bat wings and spider legs and the skin of a toad caught under a full moon. That’s what gives it its flavour.’

Thorin’s eyes glinted with amusement as he lifted the cup to his lips, tipping the ale into his mouth. He held it there shortly before swallowing.

‘Do you like it?’ Bilbo asked, taking a sip from his own ale.

‘I don’t know… I like the first sweetness that hits the tongue but once I swallowed there was a bitter taste as well.’ Thorin licked his lips. ‘I don’t know,’ he repeated, pulling in another mouthful.

‘Ale is not to everyone’s taste,’ Bilbo said as he leaned back, enjoying the sun on his face. 

‘Growing up around warriors,’ Thorin said as he studied Bilbo’s profile, ‘I was often invited to taverns with my shield brothers after the training of the day was done. Ale flowed freely on those occasions and the younger guards were expected to show their worth by matching the others cup for cup, no matter how they liked the flavour.’

‘You grew up around warriors? Is that usual for the crown princes of Erebor?’ Bilbo shifted on the bench, turning more fully towards Thorin.

‘No, it isn’t.’ Thorin turned as well. ‘There is the basic weapon’s training, of course, and after that the crown prince would be put to work in managing the realm and learning diplomacy in preparation for the throne. But my father didn’t want that for me.’ He stopped and lifted his cup for a deep, slow swallow.

Bilbo was now sitting completely sideways, his knee folded on the bench between them.

Thorin sighed. ‘He was afraid that any proximity to the treasure hoard, any work involved with supervising the mining of gold, any acceptance of foreign gifts, they would all worsen my… my affliction and lead me down the same path that my grandfather took. Better to keep my mind and my body tired with strenuous swordplay every day with the guards.’

‘But what about when you’re king? You can’t rule a dwarven kingdom with just the swing of a sword.’ Bilbo took a perfunctory sip of his ale but all his attention was focused on Thorin.

‘There’s my elder sister, Dís,’ Thorin said. ‘She took up all the work my father didn’t want me doing and it’s expected that she’ll _support_ me when I take the throne,’ Thorin said with a grimace before taking another drink of ale, ‘even though she would make a far better ruler than I’d ever be.’

It was on the tip of Bilbo’s tongue to ask _why_ Thorin’s sister couldn’t be king – or rather, queen – instead of him, but he washed it away with a sip of ale. It was not the place of a hobbit to question the customs of dwarves, and Thorin had been more forthright with him than he had any right to expect from a prince. 

And this day had been so nice, as well. The whole last week, as a matter of fact. Listening to Thorin’s heavy foot steps down the hallway, feeling the sturdy presence of the dwarf behind his back in the kitchen, hearing his low voice telling him about Erebor. And today, seeing Thorin’s eyes finally light up with pleasure had been something that Bilbo would never forget. And it had made him greedy for more, wanting to give Thorin the second kiss already, yearning to experience more of the world afresh through Thorin’s newly-awakened senses.

Bilbo leant back against the bench and closed his eyes. He could hear birds swooping over the meadow in front of his smial; their mating calls mixing with the low buzzing from a neighbouring hive of bees to make a lovely music to his ears.

But it was suddenly interrupted by the sound of stifled laughter coming from the lane passing by his bench. He opened his eyes to see a pair of young hobbits, barely out of their tweens, walking slowly by his smial. They kept whispering together, their eyes darting from Bilbo to Thorin before descending into giggles as they moved past his gate and kept glancing over their shoulders back at the couple on the bench.

‘Have the hobbits of the Shire never seen any dwarves before?’ Thorin asked, his fingers tightening around his cup.

‘They have. The dwarves from the Blue Mountains pass through here sometimes.’ Bilbo took another deep swallow, letting the ale linger in his mouth as he hoped that would be an end to that conversation.

Thorin still gazed after the two hobbits. ‘Strange…’

‘I wouldn’t let it trouble you,’ Bilbo said as he looked down on his outstretched feet. ‘Some people just like to laugh.’

The sun didn’t seem as warm anymore nor the birds so musical. And the ale had grown too bitter in Bilbo’s mouth. But he said nothing. It would only ruin Thorin’s first day, his first real day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's fan art for this chapter: Ruto drew the scene where [Bilbo teaches Thorin to cook scrambled eggs](http://rutobuka2.tumblr.com/post/126189944219/i-drew-this-for-hildyjs-birthday-and-it-is-late).


	4. To See

‘I have to go to the market,’ Bilbo called out as he passed Thorin’s bedroom. ‘And you’re coming with me.’

‘What? Why?’ Thorin emerged in the doorway, wearing only a simple shirt and trousers. The weather had turned much warmer the last week and it had been simply impossible to walk around wearing so many layers and so much leather as Thorin usually did.

‘We have no meat to speak of and we’re down to our last potato because _someone_ wanted to have an all-potato meal a few days ago.’ As Bilbo walked into the hall, he couldn’t help but smile at the memory of Thorin’s insistence of trying all the ways you could cook a potato after eating his first roast potato together with a roast chicken. So Bilbo had designed the oddest meal he’d ever eaten: fried, crispy potatoes for a first course, a main course of a baked potato with heaps of bacon and chives before finishing off with a small portion of perfectly fluffy mash for dessert. Thorin had loved it.

‘Why do I have to go with you?’ Thorin had followed him into the hall, standing solidly behind him as Bilbo picked up his basket.

‘You’ve barely been outside Bag End since you’ve got here and that was only to sit on my bench. Wouldn’t you like to see more of Hobbiton?’ Bilbo tempted as he turned to face Thorin.

Thorin shifted uneasily in front of him. ‘I’d rather stay here.’

‘The market is always full of life in the summertime. You wouldn’t be bored, I promise you. And besides,’ Bilbo said with what he hoped was a carefree shrug, ‘I need someone to tote the sack of potatoes back home.’

‘But…what if they can tell, you know, about me?’

Bilbo hesitated before answering, ‘I think it highly doubtful that they’ll notice anything out of the ordinary. You’ve already found an appreciation for food and that goes a long way with us hobbits. As for the rest of it; if someone asks for your opinion on something else than food, just smile and declare it “lovely”.’

‘Lovely?’ Thorin’s brows quirked upwards. ‘And what if it isn’t _lovely_?’

‘Then they wouldn’t ask you about it. They’re hardly likely to show off something ugly or foul-smelling to a foreigner. That’s not the Shire way. Here, everything must always be pleasant, and yes, lovely.’ Bilbo smirked, hoping Thorin understood the hint of sarcasm.

Thorin nodded, obviously deep in thought. His right hand came to rest on his mouth, his thumb brushing across his lower lip. ‘I think I would like the second kiss now.’

‘Are you sure?’ Bilbo had purposefully waited for Thorin to make this decision himself. He didn’t want to pressure him, allowing him time to get used to the new part of the world that taste had opened up for him.

‘Yes, I want to discover something new today. And,’ Thorin paused to swallow. ‘I don’t want to go to the market armed only with the one complete sense.’

‘Let me get the decanter then,’ Bilbo said as he put down his basket and walked briskly into the kitchen, throwing open the cupboard and pulling out the precious liquid and a small glass. As he poured, Bilbo pondered whether or not it was a good idea to proceed with his chosen sense. It had the potential to overwhelm Thorin completely. And maybe the market would be too much for the first day.

‘So,’ he said as he returned to Thorin. ‘You know now why I had you begin with taste.’

Thorin nodded. ‘Because it’s easily controlled.’

‘Right. And by that logic you might be able to guess what I think the next one should be.’

Thorin’s eyes looked to the floor as he pondered for a moment before returning to Bilbo’s face. ‘Sight. Because you can always close your eyes against the world.’ A small smile bloomed. ‘I’ll be able to see everything? Not just the ugly but the beautiful as well?’

Bilbo couldn’t help but to answer that earnest smile with one of his own. ‘Yes, you will.’

‘Then I’m ready.’ Thorin gestured to the small glass in Bilbo’s hand.

‘I think…’ Bilbo paused to think. ‘I think we should do this in a familiar place to you. Somewhere you know well and where you feel most comfortable.’

‘My bedroom,’ Thorin said immediately and strode past Bilbo, obviously expecting him to follow.

Making sure not to spill anything from his glass, Bilbo hurried after Thorin and found him standing expectantly next to his bed.

‘Ready?’ Bilbo asked.

‘Ready.’

‘Here we go,’ Bilbo said as he tipped the glass to his lips, swallowing quickly so the bitter taste would not linger on his tongue.

Thorin watched him carefully before Bilbo looked back at him and nodded. ‘Fine.’

‘Fine,’ Thorin repeated.

‘Just,’ Bilbo waved Thorin closer, ‘bend down a little?’

‘Yes,’ Thorin said as he lowered his head to present his lips to Bilbo.

‘No, a bit further,’ Bilbo said as he reached up and put gentle pressure on the back of Thorin’s neck. ‘I need- it’s your eyes, you see…’

‘Oh,’ Thorin lowered his chin and closed his eyes, waiting for Bilbo to do what he had to do.

Bilbo stepped closer, his hand still on the nape of Thorin’s neck, as he stared at the thin, almost translucent skin, curving over those vulnerable eyes. Tiny blue veins made a fine pattern above the black lashes as finite twitches made the lids tremor while Thorin waited for Bilbo’s touch. And when it came, he made his lips fully relax as he first touched one then the other eyelid with the softest kiss he could manage. He let his hand fall down, skimming over Thorin’s left shoulder as he moved back and waited for Thorin to open his eyes and truly see for the first time.

When the lids finally lifted and the blue eyes appeared, Bilbo expected them to be sweeping over the room, greedily taking in the colours of the bed spread, the intricate wood carvings of the closet, and the beautiful sunlight from the window making shadows on the floor.

But Thorin kept still, his eyes resting of Bilbo’s face, seemingly taking in everything from his chin to his hair.

Bilbo could feel his cheeks colouring at this frank appraisal. ‘Thorin, what are you looking at?’

‘You,’ Thorin said simply as he continued his stare. ‘If I didn’t know the meaning of the word before, I certainly do now. You are lovely, Bilbo.’

Bilbo’s cheeks felt even hotter. ‘Thank you.’ He stepped back further, wanting to leave the sphere of Thorin’s suddenly powerful gaze and spread out his arms to encompass the room. ‘And what of the rest of it?’

Thorin’s eyes looked down from Bilbo’s face, brushing over his body almost like a physical touch. The heat spread from Bilbo’s cheeks as Thorin breathed out, ‘Lovely.’

Now the room really was too warm. Bilbo felt the urge to untie his neckerchief and waft it in front of his face, hoping to cool down from Thorin’s burning gaze. He affected an upbeat tone of voice as he said, ‘No, you silly dwarf, I meant the room,’ and brushed past him, needing to put some distance between him and those blue eyes.

With Bilbo away from his line of sight, Thorin finally took in the rest of the room, turning in one place to get every detail. ‘It’s strange,’ he said after a few moments of silence, ‘I’ve been seeing these walls, these decorations every morning when I opened my eyes for the past couple of weeks, and they meant nothing to me. I knew the panelling was made of wood, that the bed spread was blue and made of cotton, that the window out into your garden was round, but that was all. Now,’ he said as he turned to face Bilbo, ‘the sight of them makes me feel calm here,’ he held one hand to the bottom of his ribs, ‘as if the very fact of them being familiar to me elevates them into something beautiful.’

Bilbo nodded in understanding. ‘I think the impression you’re trying to describe is something like cosy or comfortable, maybe. The place where you can feel relaxed. Like a home.’

‘Home…’ Thorin trailed off as his eyes still swept over the interiors of Bag End.

‘I’m sure you’ll experience the same feeling even more intensely when you return to Erebor.’

‘Yes…’ Thorin said distractedly, still wrapped up in all that he was seeing.

Bilbo spied a small object on a nearby table and picked it up, cradling it in the palm of his hand. ‘And now, I think you should take a closer look at this,’ he said as he held it up for Thorin’s inspection.

Thorin stopped completely as he gazed at the image of his own face, his own eyes staring back at him. He had brought the small mirror in his pack only as an aid for when he was doing up his braids correctly or keeping his beard short, a quick and simple job before leaving the mirror to lie face-down on a table in his bedroom.

But now he couldn’t tear his eyes away if he tried. Without thinking, his right hand slowly brushed along the straight line of his brow before swooping down his nose and then over his cheek before halting at his mouth and dark beard. He turned his head this way and then the other, watching the light and shade play over his features.

‘I…’ Thorin hesitated as he twisted one of the two braids next to his face. ‘I look so nice!’ He grinned at Bilbo.

As Bilbo looked back at him, really looked at him for the first time in weeks, he could only agree. The awakened appetite had done a world of good to Thorin’s face. The cheeks, which had been sunken and sallow, had achieved some softness and colour, though they were still far from the comfortable roundness that hobbits preferred. The nose was still striking but it no longer gave Thorin a hawkish appearance, slicing through the barren landscape of his face as it had done. The geography of Thorin’s body was still much too dominated by prominent bone and sinew, but Bilbo had no doubt that it too would have changed by the end of summer. The eyes were the biggest improvement. Before they had sluggishly moved over Thorin’s surroundings, revealing neither pleasure nor displeasure. Only indifference. But Bilbo had for a while started to discern a definite sparkle in their depths, a sign of emerging life. Or maybe hope.

And they had never looked as vibrant as they did now while Thorin was staring back at him, almost childlike in his joyous discovery of the world.

‘You look lovely,’ Bilbo murmured, his mouth moving faster than his mind as he placed the mirror on the table again.

Thorin’s grin turned into a small, pleased smile at Bilbo’s comment. ‘Lovely enough to pass muster at the Hobbiton market, do you think?’

Bilbo’s eyes sparkled with mischief. ‘So lovely that I might be tempted to trade you for Farmer Greenhand’s prized cow. Her name is Bertha, and while she might take up more room than you, she wouldn’t empty my larder in a week and she’d give me fresh milk every day.’ Bilbo had moved past Thorin to stand at the doorway when he looked back with a teasing smirk. ‘Can you match that, you great prince of dwarves?’

‘I’m sorry to say that I can’t match my natural gifts with Bertha the Cow,’ Thorin said as he followed Bilbo into the hallway, taking two quick strides to walk next to him, ‘but what of the poor farmer? What does he get out of the deal?’

‘Well, the absolute loveliness of you makes it impossible for you to work in the field as a scarecrow. Even the wild birds of the sky would be drawn to you, sitting at your feet adoringly while munching through all of Greenhand’s rye.’ Bilbo glanced up at Thorin as they walked.

‘Agreed,’ Thorin gave a mock-solemn nod but the smile on his face grew wider, ‘But maybe I could serve as a dwarven decoration, an exotic souvenir from far-away places.’

‘But he’d still have to keep you fed, and I don’t think Greenhand’s purse is big enough for that purpose,’ Bilbo said as they came to a stop at the front door. ‘No, I think you’d better stay here with me,’ he finished as he smiled up at Thorin.

‘Yes, I think I’d better,’ Thorin held eye contact for a short moment before glancing away from Bilbo’s face to look at the sunlight streaming through the small, round windows. His gaze fixed on the dust motes dancing through the sunbeam. 

Bilbo looked at Thorin’s transfixed stare and started to worry about all that lay beyond that door. ‘It might be too much for you now. I don’t want to force you to come with me if-,’ Bilbo stopped at seeing Thorin shake his head.

‘No, I want to see it.’ He moved a hand lazily through the sunbeam, watching the dust part and whirl around it. ‘I want to see all of it.’ He looked back at Bilbo, his eyes soft.

‘Alright,’ Bilbo picked up his basket once again. ‘But if it becomes too much for you, just--,’

‘Close my eyes?’ Thorin said with a quick flash of smile.

‘Exactly.’ Bilbo smiled as well, trying to conceal his niggling worry. This was the most cheerful he had seen Thorin in all the time he had stayed at Bag End. And why shouldn’t he be happy? The potion had worked – again. The first time hadn’t just been a lucky fluke. Thorin had every reason imaginable to be optimistic about everything from now on.

Bilbo placed one hand on the round door handle and looked back at Thorin. ‘Ready?’

‘Yes,’ Thorin said with a barely contained nod, his eyes almost comically wide in anticipation.

Heat streamed in as Bilbo pulled open the door, along with a bright light and the sound of birdsong. Thorin squinted as he stepped over the threshold, the harsh glare of the midday sun temporarily blinding him. But as he heard Bilbo pulling the door shut behind him, the whiteness gradually cleared from his eyes and he could see.

Green, Thorin thought. How lucky he was that the first colour to overwhelm him should be green. He knew the colour from before, but here in the unassuming Shire it flowered out into a multitude of shades, all of them of exquisite beauty. Calming, lush and vital; these were all words swarming through Thorin’s mind as he shuffled another step down from Bilbo’s door to take in more of the garden, the lane running past the smial and the meadow beyond with a large cluster of trees near the horizon.

There was so much of it all at once.

‘Thorin?’

He dimly heard Bilbo’s voice beneath the rush of blood in his ears.

‘Thorin.’ A touch to his hand. ‘Thorin. Thorin, _please_.’

Black spots invaded his field of vision, making Thorin blink to push them away. He only wanted the green. But they crawled over his eyes like ants, making him feel dizzy with their scattered movement. 

‘Breathe.’

Without thinking, he obeyed the command. The first breath removed the buzzing sensation in his finger tips, the second cleared his vision, and the third took away the coldness in his cheeks.

‘Sit down,’ he heard and he fell back heavily against a stone step with a small arm feebly supporting his back.

‘Close your eyes and keep breathing.’

But I’m not done, Thorin thought. I’ll never be done.

When he opened his eyes again, it was to the sight of a blue sky above him with a single cloud hanging from it. Then a small hand covered his eyes.

‘You went pale and then you were away for a moment,’ Bilbo said, brushing his hand over Thorin’s brow. ‘And your skin is still slightly cold.’

‘Have you ever looked at the sky, Bilbo?’

Bilbo frowned, leaning over Thorin to stare into his eyes but he made no reply.

‘You think it’s all blue but then you look closer and--,’

‘I think I need to get you back inside,’ Bilbo interrupted, grabbing hold of Thorin beneath his arms and strained to get him off the ground with very little success.

Thorin looked up at him, looked at how the light hit his curls from behind and gave them a gilded edge.

‘You’re even lovelier outside,’ Thorin said, his voice slurred.

‘And your mind has obviously gone peculiar,’ Bilbo replied before performing one giant heave on Thorin’s torso, groaning with exertion but little did it help.

Bilbo let Thorin go and straightened up. He pondered on what he should do about the inane dwarf sitting on his doorstep when he spied the straw hat of Hamfast Gamgee ducking up and down from behind the hedge.

‘Good afternoon, Hamfast,’ he called out and watched the straw hat lift to reveal the round face of his neighbour.

‘Good afternoon, Bilbo.’ Hamfast wiped the sweat from his brow as he stepped closer to the hedge dividing them.

‘Might I trouble you for a little help? You see, my guest has taken ill and I would like to bring him inside, only he’s too heavy to shift.’

Hamfast nodded in understanding. ‘I’ll be right over.’

He came up the path, pushing his sleeves up to his elbows before stopping next to Bilbo in front of Thorin. He looked down at the odd dwarf who was still busy making a thorough study of the sky, his head lolling back and forth on his shoulders.

‘Ill, did you say?’ Hamfast glanced at Bilbo with a sceptical lift of an eyebrow.

‘I think it must have been the heat that did it. Dwarves and their cold mountains, you know?’ Bilbo’s fingers fidgeted behind his back. ‘Any lick of sunlight will knock of them right out.’

Hamfast made a low hum. ‘Then let’s get him in the shade.’ He pointed briskly. ‘You take that arm and I’ll take this one.’

Together they managed to heft Thorin up between them, his limp arms draped over two pairs of hobbit shoulders. His feet dragged as they moved him slowly through the open door before depositing him in a high-backed chair in front of Bilbo’s fireplace. His head fell back against the soft headrest.

‘Thank you for your help,’ Bilbo said as he blew out a slow breath, looking down at Thorin. He was blinking slowly, either close to waking up or falling asleep.

‘Don’t mention it. Anyone would have done the same.’

‘Yes…’ Bilbo trailed off, still focused on the dwarf in his chair.

‘You never said you’d be having a foreign visitor this summer,’ Hamfast said as he looked around the room, his eyes finally coming to rest on the portraits of Bilbo’s parents above the fireplace.

‘It didn’t seem important enough to tell.’ Bilbo leant forward to feel Thorin’s heart beat. Still a bit rapid. ‘And most of Hobbiton would have found out anyway within a day or two,’ he finished with a bitter tone.

‘Aye,’ Hamfast said, ‘that’s likely true.’ He hesitated before continuing, ‘and it does add a bit more mystery to the riddle that is _Mad Baggins_.’

Bilbo’s head shot around to pierce Hamfast with a firm gaze. ‘You know I don’t like that name.’

Hamfast was unruffled. ‘Aye, I do. Though once again you do little to fight against it: receiving a strange guest in the middle of the night, locking yourself away with them for weeks, before appearing in the middle of the day with a drunk dwarf on your doorstep.’

‘He’s not--,’

‘Now, I don’t want to meddle in your affairs but it can’t be surprising to you that people will make up their own stories when you lead so secretive a life.’ He pushed back his straw hat, revealing more of his earnest face as he wiped his brow. ‘You know, my youngest girl, Marigold, came home the other day and asked Bell and me why we live next to the witch’s home. She was fair shaking with fright at the thought of it. And I asked her, where had she’d got that idea from. From the other children, she said. They’re all saying Bag End is cursed and you have to run fast when you pass it, otherwise _Mad Baggins_ will jump out and put you in his cauldron. Or turn you into a newt.’

‘Children’s fancies,’ Bilbo scoffed.

‘Might be,’ Hamfast said, ‘but they spring from a kernel of truth. I said to Marigold, I said, but my dear, you know Master Bilbo. Does he look like a witch to you?’

‘And what did she say?’

‘She said that she didn’t know. That she hadn’t seen Master Bilbo for such a long time, that maybe he’d turned into a witch when she wasn’t looking.’ Hamfast raised his eyebrows meaningfully.

Bilbo looked away, grimacing at the wall. ‘I’ve been busy.’

‘With your books and your plants and your healing. I know all this and I know there’s not a family in Hobbiton who doesn’t owe you a wealth of gratitude for all that you do. But you can’t just hide away in here alone.’ Hamfast was interrupted by Thorin murmuring softly in his chair. 

‘I need to get him some water,’ Bilbo said, passing Hamfast to get to the pail in the kitchen. He ignored the steady footsteps behind him as he found a cup and ladled some water into it.

‘Think on what I said, Bilbo,’ Hamfast said as he pushed his hat forward on his head again.

Bilbo nodded once and watched as his neighbour ambled through his front door, pulling it shut behind him.

Thorin’s eyes opened blearily as the cool water touched his lips. His right hand reached out and grabbed hold of Bilbo’s wrist, making him tip the cup more as he emptied it in three long swallows.

‘Thank you,’ Thorin sighed as his head fell back against the chair.

‘Do you feel better now?’ Bilbo touched his hand to Thorin’s forehead and sighed with relief at feeling normal warmth.

‘A bit. What-’ he pushed himself to sit straighter in the chair, ‘what happened?’

‘I think you held your breath for too long.’ Bilbo’s hand fell down at his side where he flexed his fingers into his palm, still feeling the touch of Thorin’s brow. ‘It was too much for you. I should have- I should have made you start with something smaller.’

‘What? Like a blade of grass?’ Thorin chuckled weakly as he looked up at Bilbo. ‘I fear even a flower might have been too much. I’d only swoon into your arms again.’

Bilbo laughed, feeling the tension leaving his body. ‘And I don’t think my back could take the weight of a full-grown dwarf twice in one day.’

‘Probably not,’ Thorin murmured as he pushed his hair back over his shoulder, still blinking slowly.

Bilbo twisted his hands in front of him as he noticed Thorin’s lethargy. ‘We don’t have to go to the market today,’ he said, ‘I still have some bread and some cold chicken. We could just have that for supper.’

‘No, I still want to go. Just,’ Thorin leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees, ‘give me a moment to gather myself.’

Bilbo wanted to tell him no, wanted to force him to stay in here in the cool shadows of his simple home. Nothing could overpower him then and they would just remain here together.

But, Bilbo thought as he stared down at Thorin taking deep breaths, it was not his decision to make.

‘Maybe,’ Thorin said as he pushed himself away from the chair, his hands shaky on the armrests, ‘maybe it’s like a cold bath. Once you’ve made the first plunge, the chill is not so bad the second time you dunk your head.’ He walked by Bilbo, making his way slowly out into the front hall.

Bilbo followed him, holding his hands uselessly out in front of him, his eyes wary as he studied Thorin’s back for any weakness. ‘Cold baths?’ he asked, affecting a light tone, ‘I didn’t think the crown prince of Erebor would have taken many cold baths in his life.’

‘Hot water is scarce in a mountain, and why then should it be wasted on someone like me who can’t enjoy it?’ Thorin answered as he stopped in front of the round door.

Bilbo wanted to make a biting comment that even being allowed to feel the absence of cold would have been enough reason to furnish Thorin with a warm bath but he left it alone. What lay beyond that door was more than enough to occupy Thorin’s thoughts at the moment.

‘You’re certain you want to try again?’ Bilbo asked.

Thorin squared his shoulders. ‘Yes.’

‘Alright.’ Bilbo looked around for his basket but then realised he must have dropped it outside when Thorin had started to lose his footing.

He nodded his readiness at Thorin and watched silently as the dwarf pulled the door slowly open. He stood back, allowing Thorin to move outside at his own pace, but his eyes never left him, constantly checking his body for any sign of distress.

So when Thorin again hesitated on the second step, his right foot almost tripping over the next one, Bilbo was quick to act, pulling the door shut behind him and striding up to grab hold of Thorin’s right arm.

‘Look down,’ he murmured.

And Thorin did, his head falling forward as he stared at the stone steps.

‘Tell me what you see,’ Bilbo said. ‘It might stop you from disappearing into your own head again.’

‘I see my boots, your feet and – and a basket.’

‘Oh.’ Bilbo quickly stooped to pick it up. He kept hold of Thorin’s arm as he took a step forward, saying, ‘Just keep your eyes down and tell me what you see. I’ll lead the way, trust me.’

Thorin’s shoulder bumped against Bilbo’s. ‘I do.’

‘So, what do you see?’ Bilbo asked as they took another step.

‘Moss. It’s all around the path. It’s so green. The moss growing on the stones outside Erebor is greyer than this.’

Bilbo hummed as he took another step, feeling a slight pull in his arm as Thorin followed him slowly.

‘You’ve put down different types of stones in this path,’ Thorin said, halting to tap one of them with his boot.

‘Really?’

‘Yes, see this one?’ He gestured to a brownish stone. ‘That’s a siltstone. And the one in front of it with the silver streaks? A gritstone.’

‘How can you tell?’

Thorin squatted suddenly, pulling Bilbo down with him as he kept hold of his arm. The hobbit quickly widened his stance, trying to keep his balance in this unusual position but he still fell against Thorin’s side, feeling a large muscle in the other’s back move against him as Thorin stretched to touch the stones.

‘You have to look at the size of the grain. Gritstone have larger grains and is a much tougher rock. You use them for millstones or any kind of grinding stones. Siltstones are finer and would crumble under that sort of work.’

Bilbo nodded, trying to ignore the heat coming from Thorin’s body. ‘My mother chose these stones,’ he said. ‘One year when the fields were being ploughed for the summer crops, she walked along the edge of them with a wheelbarrow, looking for any rocks that the farmers had unearthed during their work and thrown to the wayside.’ He reached forward as well, brushing his hand over the gritstone close to where Thorin’s hand lay. ‘But she didn’t know the difference between a siltstone and a gritstone. I think she chose these more for their size and their beauty than for any practical use.’

‘And she was right to do it. These _are_ beautiful.’ Thorin paused as he followed a silver streak in the stone with a finger. ‘It’s funny: I’ve been surrounded by stones and rocks all my life, knew their names before I knew the names of Mahal and all of his companions. But the first ones that I should find beautiful are a couple of random rocks from a hobbit’s field and pressed down among moss and yellow flowers in front of a hobbit’s home.’

Bilbo sat back on his heels but made no reply. He allowed himself a moment to enjoy the sight of Thorin’s broad hand brushing over the warm surface of the rock. But then something hit him: ‘Wait, yellow flowers? You said yellow flowers?’

‘Yes.’ Thorin moved back as well and gestured to his left. ‘Right here.’

Bilbo’s brows lowered. ‘Those blasted dandelions!’

For the first time since they had stepped outside, Thorin raised his head and looked at Bilbo’s face, taken aback by the sudden burst of emotion. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Those,’ Bilbo said as he pointed an accusing finger at the patch of innocent, little flowers, ‘Those are wrong! No matter how many times I pull them up, they still find their way back into my garden the next day. It’s like malicious pixies carry them in and plant them during the night!’

‘But they’re so pretty,’ Thorin said, ‘they’re like little suns.’

‘And they’d strangle everything else living in your garden if you allow them to.’ Bilbo folded his arms, a petulant expression on his face. ‘If they had arms and hands, they’d probably try to strangle the two of us in our sleep!’

Thorin turned his face away and chuckled.

‘What? What is it?’ Bilbo took a pause from glaring at the dandelions to look at Thorin.

‘Nothing. It’s just-,’ Thorin turned back, his eyes filled with mirth. ‘This is just the first time I’ve seen you so upset. And it’s over some small, yellow flowers!’ He laughed louder then and Bilbo could do nothing else but join him, his light giggles blending with Thorin’s low chuckles. Bilbo’s arms fell from their folded position and grabbed hold of Thorin’s arm, lest the both of them would tumble over from laughter. 

‘We should get going,’ Bilbo said after a moment of mirth, pulling on Thorin’s arm as he stood up, ‘if we want to stand any chance of reaching the market before nightfall.’

‘Yes.’ Thorin followed him but kept his eyes on the ground.

They made slow progress until they reached Bilbo’s gate. Dirt whirled up from the dry lane as they stepped out onto it, making Thorin’s eyes dart after it, loving the way the dust created shapes in the air. As it spread out into nothing, his gaze fell to the side of the road.

‘Small, blue flowers,’ he said, keeping up with his reciting of passing weeds, flowers and rocks.

Bilbo looked as well, noticing that Thorin had moved on from the ground just beneath his feet to studying the edge of the meadow to the left of him.

‘Yes,’ he confirmed. ‘Bluebells.’

‘They’re pretty,’ Thorin simply said.

‘And if you ever want to stop a fresh wound from bleeding, you should crush them into the compress.’

Thorin laughed shortly, scattering a couple of birds as they passed a tree. ‘That’s what you think about when you see a pretty flower? In what grisly manner you can put it to use?’ He turned to look at Bilbo.

Bilbo shrugged, a small grin on his face. ‘It’s valuable knowledge, that’s all. Like your siltstones and gritstones.’

Thorin’s laughter tapered off as he looked at Bilbo’s face, his eyes softening as he held his gaze. ‘Thank you,’ he said after a moment, ‘for telling me about the bluebells.’

Bilbo understood. ‘It was my pleasure,’ he said and he meant it. Truly, he did.

They continued on down the lane, arm in arm, Bilbo leading Thorin as he narrated all that they passed. When they went past Sandyman’s mill, his eyes had risen to the level of bushes and low fences, marvelling at the flowering hedgerows. And further down the lane he chanced a look up at the large oak when Bilbo pointed out the remains of the summer mistletoe from where the small but important berry had come. With every step, it became easier for Thorin to encompass more and more into his field of vision. Finally, when Bilbo stopped him on the edge of the market and patted his arm, Thorin took a deep breath and looked up completely, allowing his gaze to take in the busy field in front of him.

Bilbo stared up at him, hints of worry around his eyes. ‘Alright?’

Thorin looked down at that upturned face, anchoring himself to something familiar in this new world. ‘Alright,’ he said before pulling Bilbo’s arm close as he led the way into the market.


	5. To Smell

It had been a fine morning when Bilbo had set off from Bag End to visit the Burrows. Their eldest son, Mosco, had come down with a fever during the night and one of his brothers had been sent to knock loudly and insistently on Bilbo’s door just as the sun peeked over the horizon. 

Bilbo barely had time to button his shirt and grab his satchel with his most commonly used concoctions before following the lad out of the door with a hurried goodbye to a sleep-ruffled Thorin who was poking his head out from his bedroom, his eyes squinting against the early morning sun before the door slammed shut behind Bilbo.

When Bilbo had arrived at the Burrows’ smial, the feverish boy was asleep, his brow damp as he pushed vaguely at the thin sheet covering him. After checking the warmth of the flushed skin and counting the regular beats of the boy’s heart, Bilbo finally allowed himself to breathe more slowly, trying to calm his mind which had been whirling constantly since his abrupt awakening by a sharp knock at the door. The fever looked bad but seemed to be manageable.

‘What do you think?’ Peony Burrows hovered behind Bilbo’s shoulder, her hands grasping each other tightly in front of her wrinkled dress. Her hair, which was usually artfully piled on top of her head, was slowly coming apart; one lank curl kept annoying her eyes as she tossed her head to keep it away. Bilbo’s gaze travelled to the large chair next to Mosco’s bed. It seemed out of place in the small bedroom, and he noticed how it didn’t sit neatly on top of the woven rug, the corners of it bunching beneath the legs of the chair. A blanket had been carelessly tossed over a deep indentation in the seat of the chair, as if someone had spent the night there before rising quickly at Bilbo’s arrival.

‘I think,’ Bilbo said as he leant over to listen to how the boy’s breathing left and entered his chest, ‘I think that he’ll need some tea.’

‘Tea.’ Peony nodded quickly, her eyes never leaving the flushed face of her son.

‘There’s a small daisy-like flower, usually found at the bottom of hedgerows in the summer, which makes an excellent tea for treating a fever. Have him drink a cup of this with a dollop of honey added every hour today and make sure he eats something. Then switch to plain water tomorrow. I’ll come back and check on him then.’ Bilbo stood up and moved to the bedroom door.

Peony followed him. ‘Where will I find this flower?’

‘I passed a patch of them as I came here. Send one of your children back with me and I’ll point it out to them.’ Bilbo hoisted his satchel as he reached the hall and waited in front of the door.

‘Yes…’ Peony brushed back the curl from her face as she looked around distractedly in her smial for any of her children.

‘Minto.’ She spied her youngest son hiding behind one of the high-backed chairs in her parlour. His fuzzy feet sticking out from behind the red upholstery was the only thing which gave the boy away.

‘Minto, go with Master Bilbo and do what he tells you. Then come straight back here. No dilly-dallying, do you hear me?’

The small hobbit stood up but stayed behind the broad chair, keeping it between him and the worrying sight of Master Bilbo waiting in the hall for him. Minto grabbed hold of the armrest as he noticed the large bag over Bilbo’s shoulder. It was definitely large enough to stuff a fauntling into and bring back to his cauldron. Minto was quite sure of it.

‘Don’t want to.’ Minto turned his face away from his mother, hoping to hide it in his shoulder.

‘But you’re going to. For your brother’s sake.’ Peony took a firm hold of Minto’s hand and brought him out into the hall.

‘Hello, Minto,’ Bilbo said as he smiled gently down at him. But Minto had heard all about witches from his friends and knew they could charm fauntlings as well as frighten them. He kept behind his mother, pressing his forehead against her hip so he didn’t have to look the witch straight in the eye.

Peony sighed. ‘I’m sorry about this one, Bilbo. He’s a bit shy.’

Bilbo nodded, his eyes soft with understanding. ‘I was the same at his age.’

‘Maybe…Ah, yes.’ She opened the door and pointed down towards their gate. ‘His sister, Myrtle, is playing outside. Bring her with you. She has a habit of softening this one up,’ she said as she brushed a soft hand over Minto’s brown curls. ‘Would you like that, Minto? If Myrtle comes with you?’

Minto lifted his head from his mother’s apron. He thought that was a very clever suggestion because though the bag was big, it wasn’t big enough to hold _two_ fauntlings and both he and Myrtle could run really, really fast. He nodded, though he still kept his gaze down and away from the witch.

‘Thank you.’ Bilbo smiled as he straightened the satchel on his shoulder. ‘And don’t worry; Mosco will be right as rain in time for the Summer Festival.’

‘Thank you, Bilbo,’ Peony said as she pushed her son to follow Bilbo down the path to the gate.

‘Myrtle!’ she called down to a small girl with messy curls, ‘You’re to go with Master Bilbo and Minto and help them pick flowers for Mosco.’

The girl looked up from where she sat on top of the gate, kicking away from the fence and trying to get as much swing as she could from it. When she smiled back at her mum, Bilbo noticed that one of her front teeth was missing.

She jumped down and held the gate open for the other two before letting it slam closed behind her as she skipped down the lane to keep up with them. Minto slowed his step to keep behind Master Bilbo and his bag. He grabbed hold of Myrtle’s hand to stop her from getting too close to the witch.

Bilbo could hear the irregular rhythm of four feet shuffling behind him but he kept his gaze ahead. He was reminded of what Hamfast had told him of his daughter, Marigold, and wondered if these two following him were friends with her. But even if they didn’t fear for their lives in his company, he still found it very difficult to know how to speak to fauntlings. They were hardly interested in the state of his garden or his opinion on the latest book he’d read, and he didn’t know what they spent their days doing, besides scaring each other with stories of neighbourhood witches.

‘Master Bilbo?’ Myrtle said after a while of walking, ‘Is it true that you eat fauntlings?’

‘What?’ Bilbo stopped short and turned around.

‘ _Myrtle_.’ Minto hissed under his breath as he pinched his sister’s hand. Didn’t she know not to give any ideas to a witch? And Master Bilbo might not even have had his breakfast yet. He was probably famished.

‘Ow! That hurts, Minto!’ Myrtle tore her hand away from her brother and inspected the injured limb. ‘I don’t want to walk with you if you’re going to pinch me.’ She quickly took two steps forward and grabbed hold of Bilbo’s hand.

Bilbo looked down at the small girl as she peered up at him for the first time. ‘You don’t look like a witch,’ she said as she narrowed her eyes at Bilbo’s face.

‘Oh?’ Bilbo started walking again, his hand still imprisoned in her grip. He glanced back and saw Minto follow them slowly, his head bent towards the ground. ‘And what do witches look like?’

‘I don’t know but I don’t think they look like you. You just look like all other hobbits,’ Myrtle said with a note of disappointment in her voice.

Bilbo’s lips twitched. ‘How do you know that witches don’t disguise themselves to look ordinary so you won’t be frightened to come near them?’

‘That’s a good idea!’ She smiled, showing off the gap in her teeth. ‘Is that what you’re doing?’

‘Would I be telling you if I were?’ Bilbo raised one eyebrow.

‘Oh, of course.’ The girl nodded seriously but she still held onto Bilbo’s hand.

‘ _Myrtle_ ,’ came from behind them, ‘come and hold my hand again.’

‘Don’t be such a baby, Minto. It’s just Master Bilbo. He’s not going to eat _us_.’

‘How can you be sure?’ Minto skipped a couple of steps to walk next to his sister and as far away from Bilbo as possible.

‘Because we’re helping him, silly,’ Myrtle said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, ‘you don’t eat people who are helping you.’

Bilbo pressed his lips together, trying to contain the giggle threatening to bubble up from his throat as the three of them kept walking along the path.

‘Right here.’ Bilbo stopped walking and directed the children towards the patch of flowers, ‘Just pick as many as you can safely carry in your hands.’

Myrtle was the first to finish and skipped back to Bilbo, presenting him with two bulging fistfuls of the small, white flowers. Minto followed slowly behind her.

‘Very good.’ Bilbo nodded. ‘Now hurry back home and give them all to your mother. She’ll know what to do with them.’ He adjusted the strap of his satchel over his shoulder and made to turn towards Bag End, longing for breakfast and the calm companionship of Thorin.

‘Is that it?’ Myrtle’s small, affronted voice sounded from behind him.

‘What is?’ Bilbo turned back around to the two children.

‘Aren’t you going to do any witchcraft on them?’ She held out the flowers in front of her, gazing up at Bilbo expectantly.

‘That’s really not necessary,’ Bilbo started before Myrtle interrupted him.

‘But Mosco will get better quicker if you do.’ She rocked back and forth on her feet, the flowers vibrating with her excitement. Next to her, Minto, who had been listening quietly, also looked up at Bilbo with wary anticipation.

‘Alright, let me just think.’ Bilbo wracked his brain for any kind magic words that would satisfy these fauntlings, when he remembered the book about the First Age elves he had been reading to Thorin the evening before. Thankfully, Bilbo had a good memory for names.

‘Hold out the flowers in front of you,’ Bilbo said with what he hoped was solemn expression.

Myrtle stretched out her arms immediately, and Minto copied his sister after a moment. His small face finally turned up to look fully at Bilbo, his eyes holding a curious mixture of reverence and fear. Bilbo thought absentmindedly that this must be what being a wizard was like. Except, of course, that they held sway over the entirety of Middle-earth rather than just a couple of impressionable fauntlings.

Bilbo lifted his hand and moved in a circular motion over the flowers as he hummed low in his throat. The humming went up and down in pitch and loudness before it finally formed into a hypnotic chanting of foreign words:

‘ _Maedhros, Maglor,  
Celegorm, Curufin, Caranthir,   
Amras, Amrod._

_Maedhros, Maglor,  
Celegorm, Curufin, Caranthir,   
Amras, Amrod._’

He finished the final name with a flourish of his hand before letting it drop down to his side. There was a moment of silence as the two children stared up at him with open mouths.

‘Wow,’ Myrtle finally breathed. ‘That was amazing! I think I could feel the flowers getting hotter with the magic. Could you feel it, Minto? Because I could definitely feel it.’

Minto’s eyes were wide as he looked from the flowers in his hands up to Bilbo. ‘I could, too,’ he said quietly.

‘Now our flowers are really going to make Mosco better!’ Myrtle cried before setting off down the lane. ‘Come on, Minto!’ she called back. ‘We have to get them home before the magic goes away!’

Minto hesitated before speaking with a quiet voice, ‘Thank you, Master Bilbo,’ and then he hurried away as well, the flowers clutched closely to his small waistcoat.

Bilbo shook his head ruefully as he turned towards Bag End. Why had he done that? Maybe Hamfast was right. Maybe he secretly enjoyed being thought of as something supernatural among the fauntlings of the Shire. At least, it kept them away from his doorstep. Though, Bilbo thought as he remembered Myrtle and Minto’s surprised but pleased expressions, though maybe that will change once it spread amongst the children that, while he might be a witch, he was a healer, not a devourer of flesh.

A cold wind blew against Bilbo’s side, flattening the thin fabric of his white shirt against his back. As he looked up and noticed the worryingly grey skies, he crossed his arms and wished for his coat or even just his waistcoat. His pace quickened when he felt the first drops against his forehead and it turned to outright running once the rain fell fast and hard.

The heavy drops splattered dirt against Bilbo’s legs as he ran quickly down the lane, his satchel banging against his side. His shirt was now completely drenched and he could feel it sticking to his side like a cold and clammy touch. His trousers grew heavy with moisture and started to sag around his hips. Bilbo had left his suspenders at home and had to resort to hold on to them with one hand, as the other was occupied with keeping his satchel from bruising his side too much. Finally, he waddled up the steps to Bag End and pushed through the door to his home.

Bilbo took a moment in the darkness of his hall to let his satchel drop carefully to the floor before brushing his hand through his wet curls, moving them away from his forehead. He looked down at his own sodden and dirtied appearance. A fresh change of clothes wasted within one hour of waking up, he thought irritably as lifted his feet to check his muddied soles.

‘Bilbo?’ Thorin’s voice sounded from somewhere close to the kitchen and the sound of foot steps followed. Thorin appeared around the corner with a friendly smile on this face until he caught sight of Bilbo’s appearance.

‘I…’ Thorin stopped himself as his eyes travelled the length of Bilbo’s body, taking in all the changes in the usually so proper-looking hobbit.

Bilbo didn’t notice Thorin’s obvious surprise as he pulled at his own shirt, wanting to get the cold fabric away from his skin. The cold draught from this wafting travelled up his spine, making him shiver where he stood and he let the shirt fall from his fingers.

Bilbo glanced at Thorin with a smirk. ‘It’s raining,’ he said with ironic shrug of his shoulders before resuming wiping excess water from his body.

Thorin nodded absentmindedly as his gaze dropped and concentrated on two brownish peaks tenting against Bilbo’s white shirt, which had become see-through after the walk through the rain. He breathed in deeply as the cold fabric seemed to make them crinkle and peak right in front of him. Thorin quickly looked away.

Bilbo finished checking his mud-splattered legs before he looked back up. ‘I think I’ll need to wipe this with a washcloth before getting into a bath. Don’t want to drag all this dirt through my home.’

‘Yes,’ Thorin said, though his mind were occupied with following the trail of a single drop of water which had fallen from a lank curl on Bilbo’s head and was now making its slow way down his neck, swooping over his left clavicle before it disappeared down between those tempting peaks.

Bilbo frowned at Thorin’s distant gaze. ‘Can you get me one? A washcloth soaked with soap and water?’

Thorin started, blinking quickly as he focused back on Bilbo’s face. ‘Yes. Yes, of course.’ He licked his lips as he turned around to where he came from.

Thorin sat heavily on the rim of the tub as he slowly rubbed a bar of soap over the wet cloth, watching idly as the lather built up beneath his fingers. Well, that was a first, he thought as he closed his eyes, still seeing Bilbo as he had stood in front of that round door. He had looked… Thorin rubbed the soap harder. Bilbo was very… He shook his head. Once again he needed Bilbo to give him the words for what he was experiencing, but this was the one time where he couldn’t ask him. But he had never seen anyone look so, well, so _good_ as Bilbo had done in his wet and bedraggled state.

What words were there to describe Bilbo? He had called him lovely before and meant it, but that was when Bilbo had been bright and warm, like a blue sky or a lush field. Something easy and comforting in Thorin’s ever changing world. But the Bilbo of his imaginations now gave Thorin decidedly uneasy feelings, like something gathering in the bottom of his belly before spreading downwards. It brought with it an itchy sensation in the palms of his hands and the soles of his feet. Thorin felt a sort of heaviness in his centre as he kept thinking about that wet shirt and what it had revealed.

He was interrupted in his musings by Bilbo calling his name and he stood up, his clothes rubbing uncomfortably against him as he walked stiffly back out into the hall and handed Bilbo the washcloth.

‘That took you some time,’ Bilbo said with a puzzled smile as he bent to wipe down his legs and feet.

‘Yes, I -,’ Thorin looked away from the soapy stripes forming on Bilbo’s skin. ‘I couldn’t find the soap.’

Bilbo nodded. ‘Well, I hope you left it in its usual spot because now I want a proper bath. Can you light the stove for the water?’ He bundled up the now dirty washcloth and made his way towards the bathroom.

Thorin fell into step next to him. ‘It’s already lit. I wanted to start breakfast before you came home. Now I can do it while you bathe.’

Bilbo hesitated. ‘Breakfast? Are you sure? I can just as easily do it when I get changed into some new clothes.’

‘No, I want to do it. It doesn’t seem right that you cook all our meals while I do nothing.’ And, Thorin thought, it will be something to do to keep my thoughts from straying to images of you sitting in a steamy tub just a few rooms away.

‘If you’re sure?’ Bilbo finally caught Thorin’s evasive gaze.

Thorin nodded quickly. ‘I’m sure.’

‘Just – don’t try anything too advanced. I’ll be happy with just buttered toast after the morning I’ve had. Now,’ he said as they reached the kitchen, ‘let’s get some water heated for my bath and for the cup of tea we’ll need when I tell you all about my fateful meeting with Myrtle and Minto.’

 

X—X

 

It was still raining; the heavy drops a distant sound over Bilbo and Thorin’s heads as they lingered over the remains of breakfast. The grey skies outside the window and the blunt noise of continuous rain had a cocooning effect, making them sit closer and talk more quietly than they usually would.

‘You used the names of First Age elves to trick two hobbit children into believing you’re a witch?’ Thorin chuckled low as he leant forward and rested his elbows on the table, his eyes never leaving Bilbo’s face.

‘I was in a tight spot and they were the only foreign words I could remember. And I don’t think Myrtle and Minto are particular well-read on the history of Middle-earth. In fact, I’m not sure if they can read at all.’ Bilbo swallowed the last of his tea, grimacing at the bitter taste of the cooling drink.

‘And what of their brother?’ Thorin murmured, ‘Will he recover?’

‘I’m certain that he will. His breathing wasn’t laboured, his heart beat was regular and he wasn’t overly hot to the touch. A fleeting affliction, I’m sure. All he needs is rest and sustenance.’

‘And what of the flower? The one you did your _magic_ over. How will that quicken his recovery?’

‘Not directly, to be honest.’ Bilbo spread out his hands on the table. ‘The chamomile flower has been known to treat many things, from a stomach ache to a stuffed nose. But it also has a pleasing scent and makes a nice-tasting tea. And every drop the fever makes you sweat needs to be replaced if you want to get better. Add a dollop of honey, which is good for the throat, and a sickly child is more likely to drink enough of it than if he were just offered plain water.’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘And making the tea gives his parents an active role in his betterment. Makes them feel in charge of the situation. Makes them worry less.’

Thorin shook his head. ‘What if you had just talked to them? Explained everything that you just said to me? They might have chosen to use the flower, anyway.’

‘They might have. But they wanted a cure, something on which to hang their complete belief in their son’s recovery. I gave them that and now Peony Burrows doesn’t have to spend the next night and the night after that, sitting upright in her son’s bedroom and keeping an eye on his fretful sleep.’

Thorin stood up and started gathering together the plates and cups from their breakfast. ‘That doesn’t excuse it. You barely treated that boy’s mother with more respect than you did those two children with your _magic spell_.’ The cup clattered against its saucer as Thorin set them down on the kitchen counter.

Bilbo stayed seated as he frowned at Thorin’s back. ‘It’s not like I sold her some useless dried weeds to help cure a case of deadly pox.’ He picked up the butter dish and went to stand by Thorin. ‘The lad’s going to be fine in a day or two. All I did was to give his mother some peace of mind.’

‘And that was kindly done. But don’t make it a habit of keeping your neighbours in the dark when it comes to their health.’ Thorin breathed deeply. ‘They deserve more than that.’ He looked down at Bilbo, his eyes serious as they caught his gaze.

Bilbo held eye contact as he wondered just how much of Thorin’s life had been spent in the company of healers and apothecaries, people who had promised that life and happiness were to be found inside a vial of their potion but had said little of the uncertainties or the drawbacks. How many disappointments had Thorin suffered before he came to the Shire?

He sighed, feeling chastened in a way he hadn’t felt since his mother’s death. ‘I know, I know. You’re right, of course. But sometimes I tend to choose the quicker way. Less explanation, less chat. And then I get to go home in time for breakfast.’

Thorin hoisted the kettle with hot water from the stove and poured it into the washing bowl in preparation for the dirty dishes. ‘It must be a torment, then, to have me occupying your home.’ His eyes held a hint of humour as he glanced at Bilbo over his shoulder, steam billowing up in front of him. ‘Because the cure for my sickness is not a simple tea or salve and then a shove out the door; it is slow progress, patient explanations and a faithful ear when I exclaim excitedly about what must be simple familiarities to you, like the taste of a berry or the sight of a colourful beetle.’

‘But somehow,’ Bilbo paused as he took in the sight of Thorin’s profile, ‘somehow I don’t mind you so much.’

‘Not so much?’ Thorin’s lips twitched with pleasure as he looked down at the clear water.

‘Not so much.’ Bilbo smiled as he bumped against Thorin’s side. ‘Especially when you cook me breakfast and do the washing up afterwards.’

Thorin chuckled. ‘You’re still doing the drying, though.’

‘It’s only fair,’ Bilbo said with a grin as he picked up the nearest cloth, ready to receive whatever Thorin handed him.

As they worked together, as their hands performed the same monotonous movements, their eyes came to rest on the window from Bilbo’s kitchen out into the back garden, watching the rain beating against the pane, leaving behind animated rivulets and shapes.

‘Even _that_ is beautiful,’ Thorin said with a nod to the rain. ‘It seems like every day that I discover something new to marvel at.’

‘Yes.’ Bilbo finished drying a plate and stacked it next to him. ‘How are you dealing with- With all of it?’

Thorin’s hands stilled on the cup in the washing bowl as his eyes followed a drop of water making its way down the glass of the window, winding and writhing a new path through the other droplets. ‘Sometimes it’s too much,’ he admitted, ‘sometimes I feel like I’m being filled up constantly from all around me with no room for breath or thought, like a bow string drawn too taut and the bow is in danger of breaking. But then,’ he said as his shoulders dropped, ‘I close my eyes, like you advised me to, and remember to breathe deeply. And when I open them again and see…When I don’t try to hold onto it… Then it flows over me, light and easy and yes, even familiar.’ He finished with slightly embarrassed shake of the head as he continued washing the cup in his hands.

‘That’s beautiful,’ Bilbo murmured. ‘I am immensely happy that you’re getting used to it.’

‘But I don’t think I’ll ever get used to it,’ Thorin said, ‘I don’t think I _want_ to get used it.’

‘Then you’re learning how to live with it, how to enjoy it without being constantly overwhelmed.’

‘Yes,’ Thorin nodded and finished washing the final cup and saucer before handing them to Bilbo. 

He was silent for a moment while he watched Bilbo placing the clean dishes in their proper places in the kitchen cupboards before asking, ‘Which sense do you think we should do next?’

‘I’ve been pondering that same question for a couple of days now,’ Bilbo answered as he closed the final cupboard. ‘I think hearing is out of the question at this moment. It would be too grand a sense to follow directly after sight. Touch might be possible, but I think that scent should be the next one. Though it will be the first one that will be completely out of your control, I think you’ll be able to handle it.’

‘Today?’ Thorin’s face did little to conceal his eagerness.

Bilbo smiled. ‘If you want to. But give me an hour or so to prepare. I think I have an idea what your first smell should be.’

‘Yes.’ Thorin smiled wider. ‘Yes, of course.’

 

X—X

 

The soft dough flattened beneath Bilbo’s nimble hands before he folded it again and again, bringing it together in a round ball before starting all over again. As a boy he’d always wondered why his mother spent so long on this part of the baking of sweet rolls. If Bilbo had made the decisions back then, he and Belladonna would have spent infinitely more time mixing – and sampling - the filling of butter, sugar and spices than _playing_ with the dough on the kitchen counter. All it did was delay the moment when the door to the stove would open and Bilbo was finally allowed to eat what they had spent all morning preparing.

But now he rather enjoyed the kneading. His hands worked after a pattern as he let his mind flow away from the kitchen, down the hallway and into the study where Thorin was writing his letters to send back home while he waited for Bilbo to finish.

When Bilbo had brought him some fresh sheets of paper earlier, he had glanced over Thorin’s shoulder down at the drying letters on the page, hoping to glean some information of what Thorin was saying about Bag End, about Bilbo, about all that had happened here. But the angular strokes of ink just revealed an unknown dwarven script, and he had to withdraw from the study with nothing but a thankful nod from Thorin.

Giving the dough a final pull and twist, Bilbo picked up his rolling pin and started flattening it into an even shape on the counter in preparation for the filling. Looking out of the window, he noticed that the rain had finally lessened a bit and that a hint of sunshine was waiting at the edge of the dark clouds. As he picked up a spoon for the filling, he gave a thought to the farmers of the Shire and hoped that this flood of rain hadn’t washed away too many of their freshly-sown seeds.

When Bilbo was smoothing out the last of the butter and sugar mixture, making sure it reached the edge all the way around, Thorin came into the kitchen to stand next to him.

‘What’s this?’ he asked.

‘Sweet rolls,’ Bilbo answered before starting to roll the dough around the filling, making sure it was tight and even.

Thorin hummed and picked up the discarded bowl, running a finger along the edge to gather what was left of the sugary butter. Once he had scraped the bowl completely clean, Thorin abandoned it in favour of watching what Bilbo was doing.

‘I’m not complaining about you baking yet another pastry,’ Thorin said, ‘but I struggle to see how that relates to scent?’

‘You will,’ Bilbo said, fetching a sharp knife to cut the rolls. ‘I don’t want to say too much. I want it to be a surprise.’

Thorin hummed in understanding. ‘It’s just; I imagined you’d be outside, collecting flowers and herbs, wanting to show me the many scents of nature.’

‘That can wait. This is much more important.’ Bilbo placed the rolls on a tray and slid them into the hot oven. Then he turned to face Thorin as he wiped his hands in a cloth.

‘Are you ready for the next kiss?’ he asked as he took a step closer to Thorin.

‘Now? Don’t you need to prepare anything more? For the first kiss, you spent almost half a day finding things for me to taste.’

‘The weather’s a bit of a hindrance for flower collecting, so we’ll have to make do with the sweet rolls for now. Are you ready?’

Something sparked in Thorin’s eyes, and he nodded with two brisk movements of the head.

Taking the decanter from the table, Bilbo poured another small glass and swallowed it quickly, not wanting the bitter taste to linger on his tongue anymore than necessary.

‘And I’ll suppose you’ll need access to my nose now?’ Thorin smirked as he looked down at Bilbo.

‘If you wouldn’t mind?’ Bilbo gestured for Thorin to bend his head down.

As Thorin followed orders, Bilbo lightly placed his hands on either cheek as he studied Thorin’s prominent nose. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘the book just says to place a kiss on the nose, but the sheer size of the thing does make one wonder whether it should be placed on the tip, the bridge or maybe,’ he tilted Thorin’s face to the left and then the right, ‘on the broadside, so to speak.’

Thorin rolled his eyes good-naturedly as the muscles in his neck allowed his head to relax into Bilbo’s hands. ‘Maybe kiss them all just to be certain?’

‘You know, I think I will,’ Bilbo said with a quick, impish smile before stretching up to place two loud smacks on either side of Thorin’s nose, then he lingered a bit over the bridge before finishing off with fairy-light peck to the tip. He rocked back on his feet and smirked up at the dwarf.

Thorin shook his head. ‘Silly hobbit,’ he said with a small smile before stretching out to his full height once more. He groaned with the movement and placed a hand on the small of his back. ‘Gandalf really should have sent me to someone taller for my treatment. I seem to be exchanging my sickness for a constant crick in my back from having to bend for such a length of time while an impertinent hobbit takes liberties with my nose.’

‘I promise to do the next one with you lying down in a soft bed if it will stop your grumbling,’ Bilbo replied quickly before his mind caught up with his mouth. When he realised what he had said, he sucked in a quick breath before looking quickly away from Thorin’s surprised expression.

An uncomfortable warmth flooded Thorin’s cheeks. The images from earlier of Bilbo in a wet shirt and kisses in a bed merged seamlessly in his mind, making Thorin shift where he stood. He hoped Bilbo wouldn’t spy the difference in his stance.

‘Well,’ he mumbled, glad that Bilbo’s face was turned away.

‘Yes,’ Bilbo said, his hands fiddling with each other. His eyes suddenly brightened. ‘But we’re forgetting the main thing here!’ He looked back at Thorin. ‘Tell me what you can smell?’

Drawing a deep breath through his nose, Thorin said slowly, ‘There’s nothing, really. Nothing strong, anyway.’ 

Bilbo glanced at the stove. ‘Just wait a moment. It’ll be here soon.’

Thorin sat down at the kitchen table, his fingers making some indefinable rhythm against the wood. ‘I’m coming to realise,’ he said after a while, ‘how hard I find that to be. I mean, waiting.’ He shook his head ruefully. ‘This last month with you has spoiled me, I’m afraid. I’m ever hungry for new experiences.’

Bilbo joined him at the table. ‘Month and a half,’ he corrected.

‘Really?’ Thorin took a moment to think. ‘Yes, you’re right. It seems shorter. But then so much has happened during that time, it also feels like--,’ Thorin suddenly stopped himself, his mouth hanging open mid-sentence as he turned towards the stove. 

Bilbo smiled to himself and his suspicions were confirmed when the first wave of the scent hit him as well: burnt sugar, melted butter, spices, and that particular mouth-watering smell of freshly baked bread.

‘Is that…’ Thorin faltered, sitting back into his chair with a deep exhale of air.

‘Sweet rolls,’ Bilbo answered, standing up to check on them. As he opened the door to the oven, the smell intensified, leaving Thorin almost dizzy with all that he was experiencing at once.

‘They need another minute or so,’ Bilbo said as he shut the door again. He turned back to Thorin with a small smile. ‘Do you understand now why I wanted to surprise you?’

Thorin didn’t seem to hear him but just looked up at him, his face dazed. ‘It’s like…tasting the rolls but constantly and all around you. You can’t shut it out. There’s so much of it.’ His hands made senseless gestures in front of him as he tried to explain what he was experiencing.

Bilbo took two quick steps and placed a calm hand on Thorin’s shoulder. Were they about to have a repeat of Thorin’s first experience with sight? Thankfully, he was already sitting down this time. ‘Do you want to go back to your room? The windows are shut in there and you can close the door behind you. The smell won’t bother you as much then.’

‘Bother me?’ Thorin exhaled a sound that could almost be described like a laugh. ‘It doesn’t bother me. It’s magnificent. It’s…It’s…’ He took another deep sniff. ‘It’s making me hungry.’

Bilbo burst into laughter, slumping down into his chair across from Thorin. ‘That’s good. That’s very good.’ The corners of his eyes glistened as he looked over at Thorin almost craning his neck towards the stove, trying to inhale all that he could of that mouth-watering scent. Again, Bilbo thought about his childhood in Bag End, walking through the door from a day of exploring the woods and being greeted by his parents and the smell of dinner being cooked from the kitchen. Fresh bread and bubbling stews were smells that always reminded him of home. And now he was able to share this with Thorin.

‘I think they’re ready,’ Bilbo finally said and stood up, Thorin following close behind him as he went to open the oven.

The golden crust of the bread swirled with the bubbling filling as Bilbo eased the rolls from the tray onto a waiting plate on the counter. Thorin still hovered behind him. Bilbo could feel the heat of his body as he almost pushed his head over Bilbo’s shoulder, trying to get closer to those sweet-smelling pastries.

‘They’re still too hot to eat,’ Bilbo murmured. He should move away, should feel awkward with someone almost pressing their full body against his back. He had lived alone for such a long time, had gotten used to his own space. But somehow he didn’t mind. Not with Thorin.

‘Doesn’t matter,’ Thorin said as he breathed in strongly through his nose. ‘This is just as good.’

Bilbo could feel that breath on the nape of his neck, could feel the small hairs standing up to greet it. 

Yes, this is good, he thought as the rain kept beating down outside, as he remained in his cocoon together with Thorin.

 

X—X

 

The blue skies reappeared completely sometime in the afternoon and Bilbo could still hear drops of water sliding off his bench and down onto the stone path, as he opened the door for Thorin to step outside.

‘Breathe in,’ Bilbo said as he closed the door behind them.

Thorin stood still and Bilbo could see his shoulders lifting and his broad chest expanding even more as he took a long, deep sniff and let it out again.

‘Is this what the world smells like?’ Thorin wondered as took slow steps down towards the gate, still breathing strongly through his nose. ‘I never knew…’

‘After a shower of rain, it does.’ Bilbo said as they went through the gate. ‘I don’t know why. Maybe nobody does. But it’s like the water has brought life back into the plants, into the soil, into the air, and they’re all vibrating with their renewed energy, releasing their scent into the world. It’s one of my favourite smells,’ he murmured as he watched Thorin’s face carefully.

‘I think it’s mine, as well.’

‘Better than the sweet rolls?’ Bilbo hopped slightly to the left, closer to Thorin, to avoid a puddle of water which had formed in the lane.

‘Don’t make me choose,’ Thorin groaned.

Bilbo grinned. ‘Now, what about flowers?’

‘Flowers?’

‘Yes, remember when you couldn’t discern the scent of my rosebush on your first day in Bag End?’ Bilbo said as he stopped to pick a wild rose from a hedgerow and held it out to Thorin. ‘Try one now.’

Instead of taking the rose from Bilbo, Thorin cupped both of his hands softly around Bilbo’s wrist, holding it steady as he bent his head over the flower. A breath in and…

‘Lovely.’ Thorin murmured and looked up from the rose, his blue eyes resting on Bilbo’s face.

‘Yes.’ Bilbo swallowed. ‘Yes, it is.’ He looked away. ‘And of course, the m-many different flowers have many different scents. But we’ve never really bothered to- to come up with general words like we do with food. Maybe because we create the food using the flavours, and a flower just- just is…’He cleared his throat, vaguely aware of the rambling nature of his speech but was unable to stop himself. Because Thorin was still looking at him. ‘So I can’t really give you any words to describe what you’re experiencing. A rose smells like a rose and- and- and so on. Maybe we should try-’

Bilbo was interrupted by a couple of hobbits trying to move their way around Bilbo and Thorin, who were rather loitering in the middle of the narrow lane. Instinctively, Bilbo moved closer to Thorin and nodded politely to the elderly couple. He knew them to be one of the many Tooks of the Shire but his muddled mind found it difficult to come up with their names at the present.

‘Nice day for it,’ the male part of the couple said with a nod at Thorin and Bilbo.

Bilbo looked down between the two of them and noticed that his hands were still holding the flower and Thorin was still holding Bilbo’s hands.

‘I expect we’ll see the two of you at the Summer Festival,’ the elderly female hobbit added as she looked back with a knowing smile.

Bilbo’s eyes widened at the implication and he took a step back from Thorin. ‘I don’t—,’

‘Just save something for the night in question,’ the male hobbit added, ‘you shouldn’t use up all your courting on a hedgerow rose in a muddy lane, Bilbo. I’m sure your dwarf deserves more than that,’ he finished with a wave and turned around to follow his wife down the path away from Bilbo and Thorin.

If Bilbo had been babbling earlier, then it was nothing in comparison to the rush of excuses and explanations crowding the front of his mind, all of them vying to squeeze their way to Bilbo’s mouth. 

But they were all interrupted by Thorin saying, ‘Courting?’

‘Yes,’ Bilbo was determined not to look at Thorin’s face. ‘It’s the flowers, you see. Very important in hobbit courtship.’ He wiped a hand over the back of his neck, feeling the damp curls close to the skin. ‘They obviously misunderstood…’

‘Yes,’ Thorin said, ‘Obviously.’

They stood in silence for a moment. Bilbo could feel the stem of the rose sliding from his lax fingers and fall down into the wet dirt of the lane. He looked down at it, the pinkish-white of the petals a small bright spot amidst all the brown.

‘So,’ Thorin finally said with a large inhale of air, ‘You were saying that a rose smelt like a rose? But what does that flower smell like?’ He pointed at some small, white flowers scattered below the hedgerow

Bilbo smiled, feeling some tension leaving his shoulders. ‘Ah, well, that’s the _famous_ chamomile flower.’

‘Really? And does it smell like a chamomile flower?’ Thorin let his weight shift from one leg to the other, relaxing closer to Bilbo once more.

‘As a matter of fact, it does.’ Bilbo smiled brighter. ‘Do you want to take my word for it or do you want to try it out for yourself?’

‘I think I’d better,’ Thorin said with a smile of his own.

So Bilbo picked up that flower and many others during that afternoon. He also had Thorin smell some wild herbs, the bark of a tree and they even had the chance to walk past a freshly hewn field of grass, the fresh smell almost delighting Thorin as much as the sweet rolls had.

But it was the flowers that kept giving Bilbo pause. Every time he lifted one for Thorin to smell and delight at, the word _courtship_ teased at the back of Bilbo’s mind.

And he wondered if Thorin felt it, too.


	6. To Hear

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you haven't already, then go back to chapter one and see [sweetyavana's](http://sweetyavana.tumblr.com/) _beautiful_ graphic.

The Summer Festival was an annual event in the Shire and nowhere was it celebrated with more enthusiasm and gaiety than in Hobbiton. At least, that is if you asked the inhabitants of Hobbiton. The Party Tree was worked on for weeks and all families were expected to add something to its final splendour. Colourful streamers, a multitude of lights and other shining decorations were hung among the crown of the tree, the baubles almost outnumbering the leaves. It is said that hundreds of year ago a particular enthusiastic bunch of Summer Festival celebrants had loaded the previous tree with so many fineries that in the middle of the evening the trunk gave a deep groan before the entire thing fell over, just barely missing the tables of food. 

‘It’s just an excuse to drink and eat too much,’ Bilbo said as he and Thorin sat quietly in his parlour. It was a warm evening so there was no need to light the fireplace in front of them, but their chairs sat in the usual place just the same. Bilbo’s book lay idle in his lap as it had since Thorin had pressed him into conversation about the Summer Festival.

‘The way the merchants in the market place spoke of it, it sounded like an important Hobbit tradition,’ Thorin countered.

‘Well, they would say that, wouldn’t they?’ Bilbo said, ‘they’re the ones profiting most from the thing; new decorations for the tree, new party clothes, and exotic foods imported especially. All of it so that every hobbit can show off to their neighbours. No, give me a book and quiet night in my home instead of participating in that exhausting parade,’ Bilbo finished with a firm nod.

‘You’ve never gone to a Summer Festival?’ Thorin asked, ‘Not even when you were a child?’

‘Oh, yes,’ Bilbo leaned his head back to rest against his soft chair, ‘I went to all of them. My parents loved the festivals. My father did because it was a good chance to meet and greet all our neighbours, and my mother loved anything diverting which broke up her daily life. And the Summer Festival was the place were they first-- ,’ Bilbo stopped himself. ‘But I haven’t gone to one since their passing.’

‘How many years?’ Thorin asked.

‘Seven years since my mother. Fifteen since my father.’

Thorin nodded and they descended into silence. The late setting sun cast an orange light upon the walls of Bag End and a lone blackbird still sang in the tree above Bilbo’s home, its chirps and trills travelling in through the open window. 

Bilbo was about to open up his book again when Thorin said, ‘I think I would like to go to the Summer Festival in Hobbiton.’ He raised his gaze to Bilbo’s face. ‘And I’m inviting you to go with me.’

Bilbo lifted one tired eyebrow. ‘Really?’

Thorin shrugged. ‘You can’t expect me to go back to Erebor without any tales of the curious customs of hobbits. This festival might be just the thing.’

Bilbo flinched slightly at the mention of Erebor. For some reason, he had deliberately pushed Thorin’s departure from his mind, thinking it some far off thing. But now they were more than halfway through summer with only two senses left before Thorin was ready to travel back to his family. And Bilbo would be left behind in Bag End, a distant memory of _one_ summer of many in the long life of a dwarf.

‘You’re overestimating it, I fear. It’s just one long evening of eating, drinking, dancing, and music. Nothing speci--,’

‘Music?’ Thorin interrupted him. ‘Then we most definitely need to go. I want to hear music, Bilbo.’ His eyes were earnest as they met Bilbo’s gaze. ‘I want to truly hear it for the first time in my life.’

Bilbo let his arms relax and his shoulders drop, the book on his lap tilting towards one of the armrests. How could he refuse such an imploring request?

‘Alright,’ he groused, ‘we’ll go. But you’ll need new clothes, and we have to buy something to hang on the Party Tree, and we need to decide which food we’ll be bringing for the banquet, and—,’

‘Fine, fine.’ Thorin nodded quickly before stopping short. ‘Wait, new clothes?’

‘I’m not going to the festival with you if you have to undo the top button of your trousers every time you sit down,’ Bilbo said as he gestured to Thorin’s middle. 

Thorin looked down as well, noticing how his soft belly pressed against the lining of his trousers. The remaining buttons of his fly were stilled fastened but strained against their assigned holes, giving the area across Thorin’s hips a rather distressed look.

Thorin chuckled sheepishly. ‘I see what you mean. I guess your cooking is just too good.’

Bilbo started to count off with the fingers of one hand. ‘And my selection of cheeses, and the remains of last year’s jams, and that pie you bought in the market and--,’

‘Yes, alright.’ Thorin lifted his hands shortly in front of him in surrender, sharing a grin with Bilbo. ‘I suppose a change of clothes would be in order, anyway. I didn’t exactly bring my robes of ceremony to the Shire.’

‘Good.’ Bilbo nodded. ‘Then I’ll take you to the tailor’s tomorrow.’

Both of them relaxed back into their chairs, sitting quietly in the gathering dusk. The room got chillier as darkness descended, and Bilbo finally stood up to close the last window which had provided them with fresh evening air after the warm, stuffy day. He picked up two candlesticks and brought them out into the kitchen, lighting them on the slumbering embers in the stove and walked back to the parlour.

As he handed one of the candlesticks to Thorin, Bilbo said, ‘I wish you had visited me during the winter. Then we could have had a roaring fire every day. There’s nothing like the smell of burning wood in an open fireplace.’

Thorin stood to take the candle, their fingers brushing against each other as he did. ‘I might get to experience that yet,’ he murmured.

‘Yes,’ Bilbo said with a barely concealed sigh. ‘I suppose you have to keep the fires going all year round in a cold mountain such as Erebor.’

Thorin had started to turn away from Bilbo, shielding his candle with one hand as he did. But he stopped then and looked back at him with a quizzical look. He said nothing, though, and they walked side by side to their bedrooms, bidding each other goodnight before closing their doors behind them.

 

X—X

 

As Bilbo shed his coat and started unbuttoning his shirt, he thought about Thorin in the bedroom next to him, thought about how the dwarf had made himself at home. His possessions which had primly stayed in Thorin’s sack for the first month of his stay had now spread out over all available surfaces. His increasingly snug clothes were hanging in the closet while his hair beads and ties were spread over the dresser. A gift from Bilbo, a book of tales from the Blue Mountains, lay on the nightstand. And Thorin had even added to the decoration of his bedroom: a small, framed watercolour hanging above the bed. He had bought it from an eager merchant in the market place. It depicted a cheerful summer scene of the Shire, a view of the many smials of Hobbiton with their doors providing small dots of colour amidst all the green. And at the very top you could see the distinctive door of Bag End.

Bilbo sat down heavily on his bed, the candlestick between his hands, and wondered if Thorin would want to take anything with him when he left for Erebor.

 

X—X

 

Thorin pushed back the covers and lay down, his feet just touching the frame of the small bed. As he blew out his candle, he thought about tomorrow and what fresh experiences it would bring.

Before his heavy eyelids shut completely, his final thought was of Bilbo in the bedroom on the other side of the wall. 

He wondered if the light from the single candle would make Bilbo’s beautiful eyes sparkle in the darkness.

 

X—X

 

The chair in the shop of Hobbiton’s tailor really should be more comfortable, Bilbo thought as he shifted for fifth time since Thorin had gone behind the curtain with Master Goodbody, the tailor. 

Goodbody’s eyes had widened when Bilbo had asked him to make a pair of trousers, a shirt and a coat for a dwarf in time for the Summer Festival but they soon lit up at the rare challenge and at the chance to make the very first dwarven fashions to be paraded at the Summer Festival.

So, Bilbo waited in this uncomfortable chair while Thorin was being measured in the back of the shop.

‘Master Baggins?’

Bilbo looked up from the study of his feet. ‘Yes?’

‘If you would…?’ Goodbody held the curtain back, gesturing for Bilbo to follow him.

Bilbo noticed fabrics of all shades and types seemingly ready to tumble down and bury him and Goodbody, stuffed as they were into shelves all around him, as he walked through to the room where Thorin was standing, his arms folded in front of him. On the table next to him were several parchments filled with detailed patterns on what looked to be dwarven tunics. They were yellow with age.

‘There’s some disagreement on what sort of clothes your dwarf should wear to the Summer Festival,’ Goodbody explained, tugging at the tape measure around his neck.

‘It’ll be too warm for dwarven clothes,’ Thorin immediately interjected with a tone weary with repetition, pointing at the patterns. ‘I just want something light and simple.’ He looked around Goodbody to gesture at Bilbo. ‘Like what he’s wearing.’

Bilbo bristled slightly at having his very nice outfit described as _simple_ but he couldn’t object before the tailor turned back to Thorin and said,

‘This is the biggest festival of the year. I cannot have my first dwarf customer turning up in just an unadorned coat and trousers.’

‘Well, then you won’t have a dwarf customer at all.’ Thorin stepped off the slightly elevated dais in the middle of the room and made to leave.

‘Maybe we can reach some sort of compromise?’ Bilbo quickly said, moving slightly to the right to block the door from Thorin. ‘Maybe a dwarven design in light hobbit fabrics?’

‘Bilbo,’ Thorin almost whispered, glancing over his shoulder to check if the tailor was far enough away, ‘Those patterns of his… they’re like something my great-grandfather would have worn, heavy and overly decorated.’ He hesitated. ‘These new clothes are going to be—I mean, they’re the first…’

Bilbo nodded. He was beginning to understand. This was going to be the first time when Thorin dressed himself with an eye to more than just comfort and long-lasting quality. The first time he _wanted_ to look nice.

Bilbo took a step around Thorin and addressed the tailor. ‘I remember, uh, one of the Tooks wearing the most splendid coat from your hand at a wedding last summer. Was it Adalgrim, maybe? Anyway, it was a very flattering cut with the most subtle stitching. Could you repeat that grand triumph with Thorin?’ He held his polite smile as he awaited Goodbody’s answer.

‘Maybe…’ Goodbody studied Thorin’s shape, wrinkling his brow when his eyes paused on the unsightly bulges and strains of the too small shirt and trousers. ‘It’ll take a lot of fabric.’

‘No matter,’ Bilbo quickly said. ‘What kind of fabric do you think would suit? Nothing too heavy, mind you.’ He put a hand on Thorin’s back, leading him closer to the tailor. ‘It is an unusually hot summer, after all.’

‘Linen?’ Goodbody was already pulling down fabrics from his overstuffed shelves.

Bilbo shook his head almost involuntarily. ‘Only if he wants to spend the entire evening standing completely still.’ When Thorin turned his head and raised one questioning eyebrow, Bilbo added, ‘It wrinkles something dreadfully. You look like a rumpled bed after a few hours’ use.’

‘Not this one.’ Goodbody pulled a blue roll of fabric down and extended a bit of it on the table for Bilbo and Thorin to see and feel.

‘It’s blended with cotton,’ he explained, ‘so it’s still light and airy but doesn’t wrinkle quite as easily.’

Bilbo stepped forward and felt the fabric, felt how soft and light it was, how it folded easily beneath his touch. Yes, this would do nicely for a coat for Thorin.

‘Feel for yourself, Master Dwarf.’ Goodbody waved Thorin closer with an eager hand, his mood obviously improving with this positive development.

Thorin moved to stand next to Bilbo, his right hand lifting and brushing perfunctorily over the blue fabric.

‘Lovely,’ he declared, dropping his hand to his side.

Goodbody’s smile dropped a smidgen. ‘I have other light fabrics but they’re all pure linens, and Master Baggins didn’t seem to --,’

‘No, this is good,’ Thorin hastened to add, picking up a corner of the roll and rubbing it between two fingers. ‘Not scratchy, at all.’

A small giggle escaped Bilbo’s lips before he clamped it down. He shouldn’t laugh, and really, it was his fault for not preparing Thorin for this situation. Not to mention the inherent sadness in the fact that Thorin had spent his life choosing clothes on their non-scratchiness rather than their softness or their beauty.

But in this moment, with this overly eager tailor and this clueless dwarf flanking him on both sides, Bilbo found it hard to do anything but laugh.

Goodbody glanced between his two customers with narrowed eyes. ‘Yes… That’s linen for you,’ he said slowly. ‘Not scratchy.’

Thorin dropped the fabric and glanced away. Bilbo watched how his shoulders tightened.

‘What about colour?’ Bilbo quickly said, shifting closer to Thorin.

‘Well, besides this blue, I have a dark red, a grey and…’ Goodbody hesitated as he looked up at his shelves. ‘But there might be other colours in the smaller stockroom.’

‘Could you go and see? I think we’d like to have all of the choices presented to us,’ Bilbo asked with a polite smile and watched Goodbody’s back as he disappeared into the other room.

‘Are you alright?’ Bilbo turned and grabbed hold of Thorin’s hand. ‘I’m sorry for laughing.’

‘No, it’s fine. I suppose it _is_ humorous that I don’t know how linen is supposed to feel,’ Thorin said with a quiet voice.

‘But very soon you _will_ know,’ Bilbo said with a firm tug to Thorin’s hand. ‘You will.’

‘Yes.’ Thorin looked down at their joined hands and back up at Bilbo’s face.

‘Here we are,’ Goodbody came back, balancing three more rolls in front of him before letting them rest against the edge of the table in front of Bilbo and Thorin. ‘There’s the brown, a lighter blue and the--,’

‘Green,’ Thorin said, stepping forward. He still had hold of Bilbo’s hand, so he followed him. Goodbody glanced down between them before hoisting the roll of green fabric to display on the table.

It was a very dark green, like the leaves of the oak tree at the height of summer, and the weave of the linen made the colour more than just an even flatness. Bilbo could understand why Thorin was drawn to this one.

Goodbody seemed to understand as well. ‘For the coat?’

‘Yes,’ Thorin answered, ‘Definitely. And for the trousers.’

‘I think--,’ Bilbo started before being interrupted by Goodbye saying, ‘No.’ He shook his head once. ‘I won’t have one of my customers walking around looking like a shrubbery. Another colour for the trousers.’

‘Another colour for the shirt. Green for the coat and the trousers,’ Thorin countered, dropping Bilbo’s hand.

‘The shirt will be white, of course. Green for the coat. And that’s final.’

Bilbo tried again. ‘Maybe--,’

‘I can always go elsewhere,’ Thorin said, lifting his chin.

‘You’re welcome to do so. Though, I doubt you’ll find anyone on this side of Bree willing to outfit you like a piece of cabbage.’ Goodbody stood straighter, though the top of his head only just reached the middle of Thorin’s chest.

While this stand off was going on, Bilbo edged around the table and started examining the other colours on offer, holding them up next to the green. The green and grey were not cheerful enough, the green and red entirely too cheerful, and the blues were all wrong but maybe…

‘What about the brown for the trousers?’ Bilbo asked.

‘Of course, brown for the trousers.’ Goodbody nodded and lifted the other roll up on the table, overlapping it with the green.

‘What do you think?’ Bilbo looked back at Thorin.

Thorin pursed his lips as he looked down at the joining of the two colours. He looked up at Bilbo’s face, his eyes studying his eager expression. ‘If I can’t have all green…’ He paused before nodding. ‘Then this is an acceptable substitute.’

‘Excellent!’ Goodbody clapped his hands together. ‘Now, about embellishments…’

 

X—X

 

In the end Bilbo and Thorin spent the entire morning in Goodbody’s shop. Thorin showed himself to be a most exacting customer, wanting to see examples of all that the tailor had to offer before making any final decisions on his outfit. As they left just after lunchtime, Godbody’s promises of having the clothes ready two days before the Summer Festival followed them out the door. Feeling ravenous after a particular tiring start to the day, they stopped by the baker’s and bought two meat pies to eat on the way home.

As Bilbo was busy chasing a stray piece of carrot which threatened to escape the pastry casing, Thorin came to a stop next to a large, freshly-hewn field of grass.

‘Is that the famous Party Tree?’

Bilbo finished chewing before saying, ‘Yes.’

‘They’ve started decorating it already,’ Thorin pointed to a family with small children standing near some low-hanging branches. One of the smaller fauntlings was sitting on its father’s shoulders while it tied something to the tree.

Bilbo nodded, leaning against the fence surrounding the field. ‘The parents of small children usual get there first with their home-made trinkets. The fauntlings can’t wait to put their work on the tree.’

‘You said the decorations are there to symbolise the families of Hobbiton?’ Thorin leaned against the fencepost next to Bilbo, taking the last bite of his pie.

‘Yes, partly. And the more prosperous the family, the more elaborate the decorations tend to be. But it’s also used as a source of good fortune until the next summer. Farmers will hang small bags of their chosen seed, hoping for a good harvest. If you’re hoping for a child, you usually hang an acorn or beechnut.’

Thorin hummed. ‘And what are you going to hang?’

‘What my parents used to hang: silk ribbons, the colour of the front door of Bag End, with my initials in gold stitching. That should be enough to satisfy the God of the Party Tree, don’t you think?’ He quirked one humorous eyebrow at Thorin.

Thorin pushed away from the post and took a step away. ‘But don’t you have any wishes for the next year?’

Bilbo followed him and they walked down the path side by side. ‘No,’ he shook his head as he bunched up the tissue from the baker’s in his hands. ‘Not really. I live in my own home, I have work that interests me and helps others, and I go to bed every night with a good book and a full belly. You can hardly ask for more in life.’

Thorin stepped slightly to the side, allowing two female hobbits to pass them by in the opposite direction. Out of the corner of his eye, Bilbo could see one of them turn her head to look Thorin up and down before murmuring something to her friend. The friend turned as well and nodded with a slow smirk on her face.

Bilbo could feel his cheeks grow warm as he suspected what they were saying about Thorin. And they were right to have a second look at the dwarf walking next to him. Because Thorin really was something. His emerging appetite had added a pleasing sturdiness to his stature and the midday sun gave his face a lovely glow and his eyes a welcoming shine. His hair seemed thicker now than at the beginning of summer, the scattered silver sparkling under the blue sky. Even in his ill-fitting clothes, Thorin had turned out to be a handsome dwarf and Bilbo couldn’t blame the young girls for staring and wondering if this one would be at the festival.

Thorin interrupted his musings by picking up their talk, ‘Yes, you lead a good life.’ He paused. ‘But you talk so often about your parents and how happy they were together in Bag End. Haven’t you ever…?’ He nodded in the direction of the two female hobbits behind them.

Bilbo looked back over his shoulder, too. ‘No,’ he said as he looked back at Thorin, ‘it was somehow never relevant. And since the majority of Hobbiton finds me slightly odd, I’m hardly assailed by suitors every time I step outside my door.’ He shrugged. ‘And being alone suits me just fine.’

It was an old line, one that he had used many times before, whenever this conversation or variations of it befell him a family visits, neighbourly chats or Shire weddings. And it _was_ true. Or at least it had been for a very long time.

But, Bilbo thought, as he walked down the lane on this beautiful summer’s day, feeling Thorin’s sturdy and familiar presence next to him.

But, he thought, not being alone had its charms, too.

 

X—X

 

On the morning of the festival Thorin found it hard to sit still. He went to check the letter box twice and then walked aimlessly around the back garden for a good while. Bilbo finally called him in and directed him to prepare the vegetables for the dish they were taking to the festival.

He began cleaning and peeling, but after a while Thorin’s hands slowed until he was just resting the knife against the chopping board, his gaze off someplace inside his head. He felt nimble hands extract the knife from his grip, and when he finally recaptured his attention from where it had flown, he noticed that Bilbo had taken over the vegetables completely. 

Thorin left the kitchen, picking up a book in the study and almost immediately putting it down again. He ended up in his bedroom, looking at his new suit of clothes which he had collected from Goodbody the day before.

After laying out the coat and trousers on his bed, he spent a very long time adjusting them and smoothing out minor wrinkles, wanting to make sure that the outfit would look immaculate when he wore it for the first time that evening. The first time that Bilbo would see it.

His eyes roamed over the neat stitching, looking for any uncut threads while he brushed non-existent pieces of fluff from the front of the coat. His fingers stopped next to the row of brass buttons, feeling the shape of the small encircled acorns. Thorin had recognised them at once when Goodbody had shown him his collection of buttons to choose from. They were like the ones Bilbo favoured in many of his finer coats.

As he rolled a button between his fingers, Thorin realised that his thoughts seemed to be mainly occupied with two things: getting his complete senses back and Bilbo Baggins. And because he couldn’t think of one without thinking about the other, his mind had gone along a rather singular route for a long time.

Maybe that was why this night made him itch with anticipation. Not only would another sense be revealed to him, but he also had the chance to show Bilbo that he was more than an illness to be cured. He was Thorin, crown prince of Erebor, and he desperately, desperately wanted Bilbo to finally see him like that. Not just some pathetic, raggedy dwarf who had turned up on his doorstep two months ago in search of help. 

Tonight they would just be Bilbo and Thorin. Not healer and patient.

 

X—X

 

The late afternoon had a delightful breeze coming in from the south, easing Bilbo’s discomfort from a particularly hot day as he sat on his bench and waited for Thorin to finish dressing. Next to him sat the large pot of piping hot chicken stew, made with sweet peas and crunchy spring cabbage from his garden and lemons from the market. There was also a covered bowl of freshly boiled potatoes, small and yellow. It had been a long time since he had had to cook for so many people, and he hoped that it would be enough for anyone who wanted to try his cooking.

Once more he looked down at his coat pocket, checking to see if his decoration for the tree was still safely ensconced within. He could just see the dark green of the silk ribbons against his red coat. 

He leaned back his head and closed his eyes, feeling the cool wind sweeping over his brow and drying the sweat from a long day of preparations. Was one evening of food and company really worth all this fuss and effort?

The sound of the door to Bag End opening and closing broke into his thoughts. He opened his eyes and turned his head to say something teasing to Thorin about keeping him waiting.

But the words dried up in his mouth when he saw Thorin for the first time. The low sun was behind him, gilding the edges of his handsome silhouette as he walked towards the bench where Bilbo sat, his mouth open like a fish out of water. The green coat was a tailor’s masterpiece, perfectly enhancing Thorin’s broad shoulders and solid waist and bringing out a hint of pink in his face. His hair, freshly washed and braided, lay splayed over his shoulders, fully displaying its length and volume. The trousers hugged his legs close, betraying a hint of firm muscle in the thighs whenever Thorin took a step.

Bilbo swallowed hard as Thorin stopped in front of the bench and looked expectantly down at him.

‘Well?’ Thorin spread out his hands. ‘What do you think?’

‘I…’ Bilbo shifted on the bench, trying to find the right words to describe Thorin. He suddenly felt something very hot indeed on the little finger of his left hand. ‘Ow!’ He swiftly tore it away from the hot pot of stew, standing up and examining it. There was already a small, pink mark forming on the length of his finger, running from the first knuckle to the second.

‘Let me see,’ Thorin’s deep voice murmured quite close to him as a large hand closed around his fingers, turning them for inspection.

‘It was, uh, the pot. I just took it from the stove so it’s still quite…um, hot,’ Bilbo finished slowly, staring at those broad fingers cradling his own so gently.

Running a finger along the edge of the slight burn, Thorin said, ‘well, I think you’re going to survive.’ He looked down at Bilbo, his eyes glinting with amusement. ‘You’ll probably need some chamomile tea, though.’

Bilbo grinned. ‘I thought I was supposed to be the healer?’

Thorin returned the grin. ‘I learned from the best.’

They stood in silence for moment, their hands still joined, before Bilbo finally found the right words. ‘You look very handsome, Thorin,’ he said. ‘Green suits you well. You were right to choose it.’ There. That sounded innocent enough.

Thorin’s cheeks pinked with obvious pleasure. ‘Thank you.’ He licked his lips. ‘And you—’ He gazed down at Bilbo. ‘Well, obviously you look very, very good as well.’

Bilbo looked away from that blue gaze and focused on the details of Thorin’s neat sleeve. ‘This is nice,’ he said, tracing the embroidery along the cuff with one finger. The golden thread interweaved neatly among the green, creating a continuous link of oak leaves and tiny mistletoe berries.

‘It seemed right, somehow, that I should always carry a bit of oak and mistletoe,’ Thorin murmured, his eyes following Bilbo’s hand as it brushed over his sleeve.

‘Yes,’ Bilbo said, as he traced the stitching with his finger.

The noise from a group of hobbits passing by Bilbo’s fence, cheerfully chatting and hauling their own offerings to the feast table, brought Bilbo and Thorin from their daze, and they finally let go of each other’s hands. The burn on Bilbo’s little finger was completely forgotten as he curled his fingers into his palm, trying to preserve some of the heat from Thorin’s touch.

‘We should get going, too,’ he said. He turned around to pick up the pot holders and the pot when he heard Thorin saying,

‘Aren’t you forgetting something?’

Bilbo frowned as he looked down at the food and patted his pockets to check for the decoration one more time. He turned to Thorin with a questioning look.

‘The potion?’ Thorin’s eyebrows lifted. ‘I’d like my kiss before we get to the festival.’

‘Oh, yes, of course. I- I’d forgotten…’ Bilbo said as he squeezed past Thorin’s body and hurried through the door to Bag End. When it closed behind him, he took a moment in the dark and silent hall to calm his breathing. 

Because something had changed. Over the last couple of months, he had begun to count Thorin among his closest friends, someone easy to be with and talk to, someone who fit into Bilbo’s space as if he had always been there, as if there had been an invisible gap to be filled. Living with Thorin had been nice, easy, and comfortable.

Well, Bilbo thought as he walked out into the kitchen in search of the decanter, it wasn’t comfortable any more. 

Something had started between them, something else than friendship. 

But, Bilbo thought as he swallowed the bitter taste of the potion, but that was only to be expected when he was the only one close by as Thorin discovered the pleasures of the world. Of course, he would latch on to the first kindness, the first attraction, the first pleasure and think that it encompassed all that life had to offer. He was like a freshly hatched duckling, running after the first warm creature it encountered in this new and overwhelming world. 

So Bilbo had to be the responsible one and keep his distance. He had to allow Thorin to experience something else than Bilbo and Bag End, and this festival might just be the first step in that direction.

As he closed the green door behind him, he paused and rubbed a hand over the middle of his chest, feeling a slight ache behind his ribs. Maybe the potion wasn’t agreeing with something he ate earlier? He cleared his throat, trying to push down the uncomfortable sensation before turning to Thorin who was still waiting by the bench.

‘Now,’ Bilbo said, affecting a cheery tone of voice, ‘I have just the solution for that crick in your back. Stay where you are.’ He put on foot on the bench and hoisted himself up before shuffling around and facing Thorin. The wood felt warm under his bare soles.

Thorin smiled. ‘Both ears?’

‘Just to be sure,’ Bilbo said as he crooked on finger at Thorin to step closer.

He had to smooth back that dark hair, running his fingers along the silver strands before he found Thorin’s ear. Despite its large size, it was almost cute in its pleasing roundness. Bilbo allowed himself to run one finger along the rim, telling himself that the touch would mean nothing to Thorin, before leaning in and pressing a slow kiss to the shell. His hands found their way to Thorin’s shoulders, leaning against him and knowing somewhere in the back of his mind that Thorin’s bulk was all that prevented Bilbo falling flat on his face. He moved back a bit, shifting as he leaned to the other side of Thorin’s face, feeling his warm breath on his mouth as he went, and kissed the other ear just as quietly. As he finished, he pressed firmly on Thorin’s shoulders and relaxed back on his heels, his lips just brushing against Thorin’s cheek before they were completely separated once more.

Thorin had closed his eyes, the sight of Bilbo so close to him too much to handle, and now he whispered, ‘Say something, Bilbo. Please. I want to hear your voice.’

Bilbo couldn’t help but smile. ‘Silly dwarf,’ he said fondly as he hopped down from the bench.

Something nestled into the pit of Thorin’s stomach. Yes, that’s it. That’s exactly what Bilbo should sound like, light and kind. He sounded like the taste of strawberries, like the sight of a green field, like the smell of sweet rolls.

Bilbo looked up at Thorin’s face, noticing the small smile and the still closed eyes. ‘Thorin?’

Something jolted down his spine at the sound of his name. Thorin breathed deeply and opened his eyes. ‘Yes?’

‘Are you alright? Do you need to sit down?’

Thorin shook his head. ‘I’m fine. It’s just- Your voice…it’s lovely.’

‘ _My_ voice?’ Bilbo laughed. ‘This is coming from someone who could probably soothe a snapping warg with a lullaby.’

‘Really?’ Thorin’s brow wrinkled. ‘My voice is soothing?’

Bilbo picked up the pot with the chicken stew with the pot holders and handed it to Thorin. ‘You can’t hear it? It’s all deep with just a hint of roughness. Like a majestic bear purring while he’s being petted.’

‘A majestic bear?’ Thorin grinned as he held the pot between his hands. ‘I know that it’s a deep voice, but it’s nothing special.’

‘Believe me, it is. Just wait until the rest of Hobbiton hear it at the festival,’ Bilbo said as he nestled the bowl of potatoes under one arm. ‘You’ll be surrounded by eager hobbits all evening.’

Thorin shifted slightly where he stood. ‘Yes,’ he said quietly, looking away from Bilbo’s face.

Bilbo could hear musicians tuning up from the direction of the party field, and when he looked towards it, he could see the entire field and the lane leading up to it filled with the colourful party clothes of a multitude of hobbits.

‘Are you ready to go?’ he asked Thorin.

Thorin nodded and they set off together, letting the gate fall close behind them as they walked down the lane.

But Thorin almost immediately stopped, leaving Bilbo to walk a couple of paces before turning around to look at him. The dwarf stood still as a statue, his face turned towards the sky. ‘Thorin?’

‘The birds…’ Thorin whispered, gazing up at the crown of a nearby tree.

And then Bilbo heard it, too. The sound that was so common on an evening in the summer that he had taken it for granted. Chirps and trills were coming from somewhere, the light song floating alongside the gentle breeze on the warm air.

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘the birds.’ 

They stood in silence, just listening together. 

Bilbo felt like he should say something, should give Thorin the words to describe what he was hearing. But how do you explain the innocent joy that bird song gave to hobbits, dwarves, men, and elves? There was something elemental in it, like the birds had been singing all over Middle-earth since the first elves awoke, and the song had never changed. He wondered if even orcs sometimes stopped and just listened, secretly thrilling at the sound of life all around them.

Thorin finally closed his eyes and nodded. ‘I’m ready.’

Bilbo nodded as well, and he turned to take another step towards the party field, feeling a warmth next to his arm as Thorin caught up to him. They spoke very little as they walked. 

There was no need to.

 

X—X

 

‘Master Bilbo!’

Bilbo turned his head at hearing the light voice coming from somewhere among the throng of the party field. He felt a tug on his hand, looked down, and saw Myrtle and Minto staring up at him.

‘Oh, hello,’ he said with a small smile. He could feel Thorin shifting behind him, also turning towards the children.

‘Are you going to do any magic tonight?’ Myrtle’s little body vibrated with excitement as she grinned up at him. Minto stood slightly behind her, keeping a firm hold on her hand.

‘Uh…’Bilbo hesitated. ‘Not tonight. I did a lot of magic today and I’m a bit tired.’

‘Oh.’ Myrtle’s grin faded a bit before returning with full force. ‘Mosco’s much better! We had a race today, and he ran the farthest of any of us! All the way to the big tree and back! Didn’t he, Minto?’ She shook her brother’s hand, making him raise his gaze from the ground and look up at Bilbo.

‘Yes,’ Minto said quietly, ‘he’s all better.’ His voice grew stronger and he finally managed to look Bilbo in the eyes. ‘Thank you, Master Bilbo.’

Bilbo looked down at this sweet lad and his charming sister, looked at their impressed and grateful faces, and he couldn’t help but feel a bit of a fraud. And he knew that Thorin was standing behind him, listening to all of this and thinking the same thing. All he had done was make sure the boy drank some nice tea while he recovered, and these fauntlings thought that he had all but raised their brother from the dead.

He drew in breath to speak. ‘Well--,’

‘You’re not a hobbit!’ Myrtle’s eyes had left Bilbo and were now staring over his shoulder at Thorin.

Thorin moved to stand next to Bilbo. ‘No, I’m not.’

‘You’re much too big to be a hobbit. And your feet are all wrong.’ She narrowed her eyes. ‘What are you?’

‘I’m a dwarf,’ Thorin replied.

Bilbo could see both children mouthing this new word, trying out how it felt in their mouths.

‘Did Master Bilbo make you? Did he use his magic to make you come alive?’ Myrtle’s quick eyes jumped from Bilbo back to Thorin.

Bilbo heard Thorin chuckle. ‘You know… In a way, he did.’

The fauntlings’ eyes widened as they looked Thorin up and down, marvelling at this new creation. Even Minto breathed out a small ‘Wow…’

There was a call from near the tables covered with the gathered food, and the crowd around Bilbo and Thorin started moving towards them. It seemed that it had been decided to get started on the shared meal of the Summer Festival.

Myrtle and Minto ran off to find their parents, but as Thorin made to move towards the food, Bilbo placed a hand on his arm.

‘Wait a moment.’ He fished the silk ribbon from his pocket. ‘I might as well get this done while the others are distracted,’ he said and turned towards the Party Tree. 

A ladder was placed against the trunk for those who wanted their decorations high up among the leaves, but Bilbo merely stood on tiptoes and wound the end of the green strand around a low twig, watching how the gold embroidery glinted in the evening sunlight as the ribbon waved in the slight breeze.

‘There,’ he said, looking back at Thorin. ‘That’s it. Now we can eat.’

‘Wait,’ Thorin said and stepped up next to Bilbo. He took a moment to look at the green ribbon before his hand went to the lower bead of one of his braids. As he unclasped it, the bottom of his braid unravelled completely, leaving behind slightly wavy hair. 

Bilbo watched as Thorin rolled the bead between two fingers, took a breath, then stepped forward to the tree and threaded Bilbo’s ribbon through it, making sure the silk remained smooth as he clasped it tight. The twig sagged a bit at the added weight and the bead swung merrily, like a tiny bell at the end of a rope.

Thorin turned back to Bilbo. ‘It seemed right, since I dragged you here, that I should make some offering to _the God of the Party Tree_. I don’t know what dwarven hair beads symbolise but…’ He shrugged his shoulders, looking away from Bilbo’s amazed look. ‘It felt right.’

It did feel right because Bilbo felt it, too. And when Thorin left at the end of summer, this bead on a ribbon would be all that would be left of him in the Shire. That and Bilbo’s memories. 

But he didn’t say any of this. Instead, he placed a soft hand on Thorin’s back. ‘Are you hungry?’ he asked and looked up at Thorin, smiling gently at his sentimental dwarf.

‘Famished,’ Thorin answered with a smile and they went to join the rest of the party.

 

X—X

 

There were too many hobbits in Hobbiton, Bilbo decided as he chewed listlessly on a piece of bread while staring out over the teeming party field. Everywhere he looked, there were hobbits chatting, hobbits laughing, hobbits eating, hobbits drinking, hobbits, hobbits, _hobbits_.

And in the middle of it all was Thorin. Bilbo wondered if he had ever seen him smile as much as he had since being all but carried away from Bilbo by what seemed to be a swarm of chattering hobbits. Thorin was obviously a novel attraction at this year’s Summer Festival, and right now he was being petted and admired like a prize bull at market.

Bilbo stopped chewing completely as he saw a particularly brazen female hobbit reach out and twirl a strand of Thorin’s long hair around her finger, grinning at her friend as she did. Thorin was oblivious to her until she circled around him, smiling sweetly up at him and fluffing out her new skirt. A shadow from a branch fell over Thorin’s face, and Bilbo couldn’t make out his expression from this distance. He could only see the dwarf nod at his new acquaintance. 

The bread was still half-eaten when Bilbo swallowed hard, gulping to force it down his throat.

Yes, definitely too many hobbits.

He looked towards the slightly raised bandstand, annoyed at the sight of idle instruments while the musicians gorged themselves with the rest of Hobbiton. He had promised Thorin music, but so far it had been all food, chatter, and over-familiar hobbits crowding around _his_ guest. Thorin wouldn’t even be here for the rest of them to fawn over if it hadn’t been for Bilbo.

His back was jostled as someone squeezed past, carrying more freshly poured cups of ale than it should be possible to balance all at once. Bilbo followed the hobbit with his gaze and saw how he joined a group of cheering friends, all of them happily relieving him of his burden.

Bilbo emptied his own cup and rose to get some more. As he moved across the field, he had to constantly weave and dodge, trying to go unnoticed in the midst of all this revelry.

‘Bilbo.’

Even among all this noise, Bilbo recognised the familiar voice. As he turned and looked up at Thorin’s face, open and shiny from the warm evening, he couldn’t help but smile at his friend.

‘Bilbo, you have to try this food.’ Thorin held up a plate in front of him with what looked to be small, round cakes, yellow and flaky.

‘Yes, let me just…’ Bilbo started to shift his cup from one hand to another, but before he could reach out and take a piece, Thorin’s hand appeared in front of his face, offering up the food.

For a heartbeat or two there was an eccentric urge at the back of Bilbo’s mind to simply lean forward and eat out of Thorin’s hand, letting his lips brush over the fingers as he plucked the morsel delicately from his grasp.

But then the noise of the party field made itself present in his mind again, and he simply took the food from Thorin’s hand, nodding his thanks before biting into it.

Bilbo’s eyes widened at what he tasted. ‘Potatoes.’

Thorin nodded. ‘And onions and parsley; shredded together with egg and flour and then fried.’ He waited while Bilbo finished chewing. ‘Good, isn’t it?’

Bilbo hummed. ‘Yes, very.’ He looked over Thorin’s shoulder and saw the group of hobbits he had left behind to come and talk to Bilbo. ‘Enjoying yourself?’ he asked.

Thorin blew out a breath. ‘They’re very talkative, your friends.’ He smoothed back a strand of hair from his forehead. ‘I could barely get a word in with all their questions.’

‘Oh?’ Bilbo started walking again, heading towards the barrels of ale and wine. Thorin followed him. ‘And what did they ask you? Nothing improper, I hope?’

‘No.’ Thorin began counting off with his fingers. ‘It was mainly about who had made my clothes, had I ever been to the Summer Festival before, what food had I brought for the banquet, whether I was going to dance later on, and so on.’

Bilbo nodded as he refilled his cup with wine. He held up an empty cup at Thorin, and when he received an affirmative nod, filled that one as well and handed it off to the dwarf.

They sipped leisurely as they strolled around the outer limit of the field.

Bilbo looked up at Thorin. ‘How are you doing with…’ He gestured to his own ear. ‘You know.’

‘Fine, so far. There’s been so much noise and talk that I’ve barely been able to get lost in any one pleasurable sound.’

‘That’s good.’ Bilbo took another sip.

Thorin looked down at the cup in his hand. ‘I think I prefer wine to ale. Less bitter.’

Bilbo smiled. ‘I seem to have given you a taste for sweetness. I hope they have enough honey in Erebor when you return.’

Thorin took another deep swallow from his cup but made no other reply.

A group of fauntlings ran pass them, playing some sort of chase game, ducking and hiding behind tree trunks and the legs of their parents before darting away again. The sound of their high-pitched squeals of delight and laughter rang back to where Bilbo and Thorin stood.

Bilbo was thinking of a way to steer the conversation back to those hobbits that had surrounded Thorin earlier, when he was distracted by the sound of a bow moving nimbly over strings as a fiddle was warmed up.

The musicians had returned to their instruments.

 

X—X

 

It started off with a quick beat of the bass drum, quicker than Thorin’s pulse, though it soon caught up. He could feel it speeding even more as a snare drum provided an intricate counter to the deep booms. Thorin’s breath quickened as first the fiddle then the flute started a jolly melody over the rhythm, chasing each other up, down and around before falling into place next to each other for a while. Then one skipped away and the other followed, repeating the melody. And it turned quicker, all the while quicker and quicker.

Thorin could feel it all in his body. The beat hit him in the very centre while the light tones of the fiddle and flute seemed to light up his head, heat spreading from his forehead to his ears. The melody kept repeating and repeating, zinging through him and making him buzz from the soles of his feet to the ends of his hair.

It was all around him, pressing against him and never stopping. And he wanted to move with it, wanted to let himself be swept up with it.

The flute had finally left the fiddle behind to play the melody over and over again, while it soared above it, almost trilling and chirping.

‘Like birds…’ Thorin murmured, his eyes fixed on the bandstand.

From the corner of his eye, he could see Bilbo looking up at him surprised. ‘Yes,’ he whispered as he nodded slowly.

Someone pushed past Thorin, brushing against his arm on their way to the middle of the field where the first dancers had already fallen into the rhythm of the music; the same rhythm that still beat through Thorin’s body, urging it to move.

‘I want to dance,’ he declared, turning to Bilbo.

Bilbo’s eyes widened. ‘Oh, right.’ He looked around the crowd, his eyes searching. ‘Well, maybe--,’

‘With you.’

Bilbo exhaled a short breath, a parody of a laugh. ‘I haven’t danced at the Summer Festival since I was a child.’

‘And I’ve never danced a step in my life,’ Thorin countered. ‘We’ll be evenly matched.’

Bilbo licked his lips as he looked towards the middle of the field where the dancing couples seemed to form one pulsing mass. ‘There’ll be laughter.’

‘It doesn’t matter. The music will drown it out.’ The beat settled along Thorin’s spine, making his body bob up and down in time to the bass drum.

He looked down to see Bilbo gazing up at him, his eyes inspecting Thorin’s eager face.

Bilbo sighed as he put down his cup on a nearby table. ‘Alright. But we’ll be something of a spectacle; _Mad Baggins_ and his mad dwarf.’

‘But we’ll be mad together,’ Thorin said as he set down his cup and grabbed Bilbo’s hand. ‘Come on!’

Thorin led the way as they snaked through the crowd, Bilbo mumbling apologies as Thorin bumped him into several hobbits on the way. When they reached the edge of the dancing area, Thorin turned around to Bilbo and spread his hands out expectantly.

‘Right,’ Bilbo mumbled as he first placed Thorin’s right hand on his own shoulder and grabbed Thorin’s waist with his left hand.

‘And hands…’ Bilbo stretched out his right hand, gesturing silently for Thorin to take it.

‘What now?’ This close to the musicians the beat almost vibrated through Thorin’s body and he just wanted to _move_.

‘Um…’ Bilbo looked down, only now noticing Thorin’s heavy boots and his naked feet in close proximity to each other. One misstep and Bilbo was in serious danger of breaking a toe.

He looked up at Thorin. ‘Let’s just keep it simple to start.’ He took a moment to feel the rhythm of the bass drum. ‘Lift your left foot,’ he said, lifting his own right while looking down to see if Thorin complied.

‘Now, follow the beat. And one…’ He put his foot down as Thorin did the same, their bodies tilting over to one side.

‘And…’ Bilbo lifted his other foot and Thorin followed. ‘…two.’ Down came the feet again while the other side went up.

‘And one.’ Down again, closer to the beat.

‘And two,’ Thorin joined in, his body easing into the rhythm. ‘And one.’

They held on to each other, hopping from one foot to the other, every step bringing them closer and closer to perfect accordance with the beat.

Thorin laughed as his movements finally matched what had been brewing in him since the music started. ‘This is fun!’ he leaned down and said into Bilbo’s ear.

Bilbo nodded, blowing out air to dislodge lock of damp hair from his forehead. ‘Yes, it is.’ His hand started to slip on Thorin’s shoulder and he stretched up to hold onto it. ‘You’re a bit too big, though.’

Thorin grinned. ‘You’re a bit too small.’

The music seemed to working towards a crescendo, the flute and the fiddle falling in next to each other, belting out a final rendition of the melody.

Thorin only hesitated for a moment before making his decision. He let go of Bilbo’s hand and folded both of his own hands around Bilbo’s back. Then he lifted upwards.

‘What--?’ was all Bilbo was able to say as he felt both his feet leave the ground and he was pressed against Thorin’s chest. His arms went instinctively around Thorin’s neck as he clung onto him for fear of falling.

‘Come on, Bilbo!’ Thorin said before swinging them around, tramping around the dancing couples in time to the beat. The steps were neither elegant nor fluid, but you would be hard pressed to find anyone who could match Thorin for enthusiasm. He felt lighter than he ever had before, even though he was towing Bilbo around with him, and a laugh was starting to form behind his ribs.

He tilted his head to the side and watched as Bilbo pressed against his shoulder. The evening breeze ruffled his curls and the warmth of the dancing had put a pleasing pink in his cheeks. Thorin breathed in deeply, for the first time really noticing Bilbo’s scent. There was the chicken stew he had cooked earlier mingled with the smell of books from his library and some indefinable herb from his garden or maybe his storage of healing plants. Thorin drew in a long breath through his nose. It smelt familiar. It smelt like Bilbo.

The music stopped as suddenly as it started to a thunderous sound of applause, cheers and hollering from all around the field. 

As this burst out around them, Thorin slowly lowered Bilbo back to the ground, his hands loosening their grip but still keeping the same position on Bilbo’s back.

Their chests heaved with the recent exertion, their breaths mingling between them as Bilbo stared up at him, his arms slipping slowly down from Thorin’s neck.

‘You’re right,’ Bilbo breathed. ‘That was fun.’ He took a step back, forcing Thorin to let go of him, and licked his lips as he looked down at his feet.

Thorin swallowed. ‘Yes.’

The music started up again and new couples joined the dance while others went in search of a cup of ale or another plate a food. 

‘Again?’ Thorin asked.

Bilbo looked up at Thorin’s shining face. ‘Of course.’

 

X—X

 

They danced that dance and the next two after that but when Thorin went to hold Bilbo for the next one, he finally put up his arms in surrender.

‘No more,’ he said, trying to calm his rapidly beating heart, ‘No more, I beg you.’

Thorin grinned. ‘A cup of wine instead?’

‘A cup of _anything_!’ Bilbo said with a laugh.

They found a full bottle and two cups and went to sit at the bottom of a smaller oak at the edge of the field. They rested their backs against the trunk, their shoulders just touching as they shared the wine between them.

It was late now. The tables of food had been cleared except for the massive cake. Parents cut large pieces for their fauntlings to eat while they walked home. Several of the smaller ones were already asleep against their fathers’ shoulders, the excitement of the Summer Festival finally becoming too much for them.

‘There are so many children here,’ Thorin said with a note of wonder as he took a sip from his cup.

Bilbo looked around the field, trying to match the amount of fauntlings with the amount of adults in his head. ‘It doesn’t seem like a lot to me,’ he finally said.

‘I heard one hobbit earlier talk about his seven children – Seven!’ Thorin shook his head. ‘A dwarf or a dwarrowdam is lucky if they have more than one child. And that’s only if they get the rare opportunity to marry.’

Bilbo frowned. ‘Rare?’

‘Dwarves choose _not_ to marry as often as they choose to marry. There are other things in our lives which call to us just as much as romantic love: our chosen work, our family, our homeland, our duty.’

Bilbo hummed, swallowing a mouthful of wine before asking, ‘And what calls to you?’

Thorin let his head roll to the side, his cheek resting against the bark of the tree as he watched Bilbo’s profile. ‘I hardly know now.’

The sound of scattered applause reached them, and they both looked up to see a young couple of hobbits kissing shortly as their family and friends stood around them, smiling and cheering. As the couple stepped back, Thorin saw that they were still linked by small ribbon stretching between their hands. Without speaking a word, they turned as one and walked to the Party Tree where they tied the ribbon among the leaves. They joined hands and stood quietly in front of the tree, watching the new decoration.

‘My cousin, Otho Sackville-Baggins and Lobelia Bracegirdle,’ Bilbo explained. ‘They’re making a promise.’

Thorin watched as the couple turned to each other, watched how their eyes glistened, watched how Otho ran a hand through his sweetheart’s hair, and he knew what kind of promise it was. ‘To marry.’

Bilbo nodded. ‘The ribbon symbolises their new union, and tying it on the tree during the Summer Festival is supposed to bring good fortune to their marriage, making sure it will be an _eternal summer_ ,’ he finished with one raised eyebrow.

‘You don’t believe in it?’ Thorin turned more fully towards Bilbo. ‘In eternal love?’

Bilbo thought as he took another sip from his cup. ‘I do,’ he said, ‘but it takes more work than tying a ribbon around a tree.’

Thorin drank as well. ‘We have a legend,’ he said, ‘which says that when Mahal forged the first dwarves, he made them too perfect. This aroused envy in Eru, that his own creations, the elves, could not possibly reach the heights that these first dwarves did.’

‘That sounds like the kind of legend that your people like to tell each other,’ Bilbo said with a smirk.

Thorin smiled. ‘Perhaps. So, Eru forced Mahal to melt his creation down, mix the metal with an inferior one and forge the dwarves anew. They were still hardy, strong and proud but they lacked something of their earlier splendour. And it is said that all the dwarves, who are descended from these first ones, feel the loss of that metal from the original making. And when they find that lost metal in another dwarf, they will reach a magnificence which hasn’t been seen since the dawn of the world.’

‘And is that love?’ Bilbo asked.

‘We call it, finding our One. The One that will complete us.’

Bilbo was quiet for a moment before saying, ‘that doesn’t sound like love to me.’

Thorin let his head roll against the trunk of the tree as he looked at Bilbo. ‘No?’

‘No. I don’t think loving another is some grand destiny handed down from your forefathers. It’s a choice that you make, that you have to make every day. You have to choose to want the other, choose to support them, choose to help them. If love was a matter of fate, of simply pushing together the right bricks to make a solid wall, then it would be easy.’ He looked up at Thorin. ‘And it isn’t.’

Thorin looked down at the cup in his hand, tilted it that way and the other to see the red wine stain the sides. ‘You speak as if you know the nature of love intimately.’ He tried to keep his voice calm and even but he still heard a spike of acidity in his words. Bilbo had said that he’d never been interested in anything like that but now Thorin wasn’t so sure. Had there been anyone else in Bag End before him?

Bilbo shook his head, turning away from Thorin. ‘I don’t know. Maybe it’s just the wine talking. It tends to make me more opinionated.’

‘ _More_ opinionated?’ Thorin forced a grin, allowing Bilbo to escape the earlier conversation. ‘Even more than the very strong views you hold on the correct way to cook scrambled eggs?’

‘You can’t compare love with scrambled eggs! The scrambled eggs will win every time!’

Thorin laughed shortly before the two of them descended into silence, alternating between lifting their cups to their lips and rolling them between their hands.

Bilbo broke the silence. ‘So, if your legend is correct then a dwarf can only truly be complete, can only truly love, if they love another dwarf?’ He kept his gaze directed forwards, his eyes following a group of chatting hobbits as they walked across the field.

‘Yes,’ Thorin said, glancing at Bilbo, ‘if the legend is correct.’ But even though Thorin had heard it told all his life and knew the names of the renowned dwarves who had found their One and been elevated by their love to do great deeds, here in the Shire, sitting next to Bilbo, it felt more like a fairy tale passed on to children to reassure them of their secure place in Mahal’s creation. And if there was such a thing as Ones, then it _had_ to extend beyond the borders of Erebor, the Blue Mountains and the Iron Hills.

He glanced at Bilbo again. It just had to.

The party field had calmed down. Several of the older hobbits had left shortly after the families with young fauntlings. The large cake had been decimated into crumbs, and all around were groups of friends and couples relaxing next to each other, their quiet murmurings rolling gently through the field. The musicians had taken a break and were now drinking well-deserved cups of ale as they leaned against the bandstand, the fiddler wiping a handkerchief across his sweaty brow. He patted the snare drummer on the shoulder before picking up his fiddle. He ran his bow across it once, feeling the strings yielding to his stroke. He stood alone on the stage when he started playing.

Thorin rested his arms on his knees, leaning forward to get closer to that sound. The music flowed slowly, like water drops trickling down a rock. But it was not regular like a mountain stream would be. Every time he thought he knew it, the sound changed again. A single note was held for a bit longer here and there, vibrating against the depth of the fiddle’s body. He couldn’t describe exactly what he was hearing, only what it made him feel.

‘It sounds like it’s crying,’ he whispered so softly that only Bilbo could hear.

The field was completely silent now as the sound of the lone fiddle weaved a spell over the last remnants of the gathering.

Thorin held his breath, feeling the evocative music settling behind his sternum and pushing up towards his head through his throat. He swallowed reflexively but it was still there.

‘Thorin?’ Bilbo’s voice was far away.

His eyes stung as his throat closed. It was too much. He couldn’t escape it.

He could feel Bilbo shifting closer, could feel his breath on his cheek.

‘Speak to me, Bilbo,’ he whispered. ‘I can’t handle this. Just…say anything to drown it out, _please_.’

Bilbo bit his lips in thought before whispering in Thorin’s ear, ‘How about a riddle?’

Thorin nodded quickly. ‘Anything.’

‘Right,’ Bilbo paused before reciting,

‘ _A box without hinges, key, or lid,  
Yet golden treasure inside is hid._ ’

Thorin blinked, the tightness in his throat easing, and for the first time since the fiddler had started, he turned his head and looked straight at Bilbo. ‘A golden treasure?’

Bilbo nodded. ‘Well, go on. What am I talking about?’

‘A box…’ Thorin’s eyes unfocused as his mind started working. ‘Is it something which can only be opened with magic?’

Bilbo rolled his eyes. ‘No, it’s a common, ordinary thing.’

Thorin leaned his head back against the tree trunk, straining back to look up at the crown of leaves above him. ‘How about a box-shaped piece of stone with an ore of gold inside it?’

Bilbo laughed. ‘I said _common_!’

‘What?’ Thorin grinned. ‘Gold is quite common where I’m from.’

‘Yes, but you don’t dig it out in box-shapes!’

Thorin shook his head. ‘I give up. Tell me.’

Bilbo leaned closer to murmur, ‘An egg.’

‘But that’s not a box! Boxes have corners! An egg is all smooth.’

‘It’s sort of a box!’ Bilbo protested ‘There’s the outer casing – the shell – and then what it contains. Like a box.’

Thorin rolled his eyes though his grin remained constant. ‘That’s a bit of a stretch, don’t you think?’

‘Well, it wouldn’t be much of a riddle if I just said,

 _From a scaly or feathered thing it slid,  
Yet golden treasure inside is hid._ ’

Thorin slapped his thigh. ‘Much better! Now you actually have a chance of guessing it’

Bilbo bumped his shoulder against Thorin’s arm. ‘Yes, if you’re a child!’

Thorin laughed loudly. ‘Well, I see I have to prove myself to you. Give me another one.’

And they sat together closely under the tree, as Bilbo asked Thorin about the one with the thirty white horses, and the one with the eyes, and the one with the legs, and many others. Their murmurings and whispers didn’t carry farther into the field than the length of their legs. 

Only once or twice was a loud guffaw or giggle heard above the music as Bilbo guarded Thorin’s ears for the rest of the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The legend about dwarves and their Ones is a mix between Tolkien's [creation myth](http://www.tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Dwarves#Origin) and [Aristophanes' speech on love](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symposium_%28Plato%29#Aristophanes) from Plato's _Symposium_
> 
> The last piece of music which affected Thorin so is inspired by [the Sarabande from Bach's Cello Suite no. 5](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJKByFsa8Fc&)
> 
> And there's fan art for this chapter: Quel drew [Bilbo and Thorin dancing at the Summer Festival](http://tosquinha.tumblr.com/post/126141738012/happy-belated-birthday-hildyj-3).


	7. To Touch

After the Summer Festival, the weeks passed quietly in Bag End. The heat finally eased off, making it possible for Bilbo and Thorin to spend more time in the garden which had been slightly neglected since Thorin’s arrival. More of the dreaded dandelions had spread out across the flowerbeds, closing in on Bilbo’s prized irises with ferocious hostility. So, Bilbo and Thorin joined ranks to push them back once more.

Bilbo’s finely crafted gardening tools were made for hobbit hands and Thorin’s broad fingers completely encircled them from top to bottom, finding it difficult to find purchase on the small handle.

‘Just use your hands,’ Bilbo said. ‘Since it rained a couple of days ago, the soil is soft in this part of the garden.’ He kneeled down next to Thorin and showed him how to pull up a stubborn weed. ‘Make sure you get as much of the root of the thing as possible.’ He looked over his shoulder and grinned at Thorin. ‘But try not to dig up my entire garden in your enthusiasm.’

Thorin smiled as he tied back his hair from his face. ‘I’ll try.’

Bilbo left him to it, picking up the tools and moving over to the other side of the garden. His hands soon fell into the familiar movements of garden work as his mind wandered.

A cool breeze drifted over his forehead. This turn in the weather was a welcome break after the last stifling months, but for Bilbo it also heralded something else: the end of summer.

And now he waited. Waited for Thorin to ask for his last sense. Waited for this to end. 

The edge of his shovel suddenly hit against a buried rock and his hand skidded off, giving a painful twist to his wrist. Bilbo sat back on his heels, rubbing the sore limb and feeling for any heat or swelling. He blew out a slow breath. No matter, he thought. No matter. But the wrist still ached.

He focused his mind on his work, moving slowly down the beds and amassing an impressive pile of weeds next to him. As the sun rose higher in the sky, he stopped to wipe sweat of the nape of his neck, wishing that he had his handkerchief close by to waft himself.

Bilbo glanced over his shoulder to see how Thorin was coming along. But there was no trace of him. Bilbo frowned and turned more fully around, his eyes scanning the garden for the dwarf. Finally, he stood up completely, intending to look for Thorin inside.

As he walked past the tall irises, he almost tripped and fell over something sticking out from behind the flowerbed. Stumbling before righting himself, Bilbo looked down to see Thorin lying flat on his back in the grass, his arms flung lazily above his head with his eyes closed.

Bilbo lightly kicked the offending boot which had almost caused him to fall. ‘I thought you were going to help me with the weeding?’

Thorin’s contented smile widened. ‘I _am_ helping.’

Bilbo glanced at the pathetically small pile of pulled weeds next to Thorin. ‘Oh? How so?’

Thorin’s eyes were still closed. ‘You may know about gardening, Bilbo Baggins. But I know about battles. And you need both an offensive and a defensive strategy if you’re fighting a mighty foe such as the dreaded dandelions. So, while you’re charging ahead on that side of the garden, I have retaken the irises and have now entrenched myself between them and the enemy. And though they still hold sway in the neighbouring parts, I will not allow them to take back what I have won.’

Bilbo couldn’t help but smile. ‘And what if they dig tunnels underneath the fortifications – that is, under you?’

‘None of the information I have gathered about this new foe suggests that they have digging capabilities.’

Bilbo hummed. ‘You might be in for a long wait, though. You are on the dandelions’ territory. They know these lands better than you, and they have a constant stream of energy from the sky and the soil. You haven’t even established a supply line from your current position to the kitchen. They’ll starve you before you starve them.’

Thorin finally opened his eyes, holding up one hand to shade them against the sun. ‘That’s where you come in. Once you’ve won the battle on your side of the garden, you can come to my aid and we’ll fight off the remaining dandelions together.’

Tilting his head to one side, Bilbo asked, ‘And this has nothing to do with you rather wanting to lie down in the sunshine than crouching over and pulling weeds?’

Thorin’s lips twitched. ‘This is sound battle strategy I’m using.’

Bilbo shook his head and grinned. ‘Well, we’ll need supplies in any case. Water?’ he asked as he turned to head inside.

‘Please.’ Thorin nodded. ‘And maybe a sandwich as well?’ His happy voice followed Bilbo as he opened the door to Bag End.

Bilbo couldn’t stop smiling as he started making the sandwiches. A short laughter bubbled up from his throat as he thought about asking Thorin what he would do if the dandelions acquired siege weapons. The image of Thorin caught among the flowerbeds with small yellow flowers building towers to get over him, while others pelted him with tiny rocks from afar stayed with him as he walked back outside with the much needed provisions.

As the door fell shut behind him, Bilbo looked up with a smile, readying to challenge Thorin’s defence plans anew but he stopped completely when he saw the new guest in his garden.

Thorin was now standing up, his back stiff and turned towards Bilbo. In front of him was a large raven, its sharp beak opening and closing as it spoke in some guttural noises to Thorin who answered shortly in the same language.

Bilbo placed the tray down on the bench, trying to keep one eye on Thorin and the bird as he did, wondering if it was the same one which had told him of Thorin’s arrival at the start of summer. He hovered next to the bench, not wanting to interrupt but not wanting to leave Thorin alone, either.

Thorin shook his head and looked away from the raven, but it hopped into his field of vision, squawking indignantly at being so ignored. It continued in that unfamiliar language, blowing out its feathers for emphasis. Finally, Thorin bit out a curt response and waved it away.

It took off from the garden, its large wings swooping in the still, warm air, and left behind Thorin and Bilbo standing on each side of the garden in complete silence.

Bilbo could see that Thorin held a dandelion in his hand, squeezing the stem so much that its milky liquid oozed from where it had been broken off. 

‘Did it come from Erebor?’

Thorin’s shoulders tightened. ‘Yes.’

Bilbo swallowed hard as he waited for Thorin to explain.

‘It’s…’ The dandelion fell from Thorin’s hand as he turned to face Bilbo. ‘It’s the king, my father.’ His eyes glistened as he looked at Bilbo. ‘He’s – he’s not well.’

Bilbo closed the distance between them in four quick steps. ‘Oh, Thorin,’ he said, taking hold of his hand and hoping to steady the other with his presence.

‘He’s taken to his bed, eats very little, and he’s – ’ Thorin shut his eyes tightly. ‘He’s asking for me.’

Bilbo felt something cold run down his spine. This was it. The end of summer had come sooner than he had expected. He closed his eyes briefly, trying to even out his breath as he did. He had to keep calm for Thorin’s sake.

Giving a firm tug to Thorin’s hand, Bilbo said, ‘then you must return to him. To Erebor.’ He pressed his lips together shortly. ‘As soon as possible.’

Looking down at their joined hands, Thorin mumbled slowly, ‘But we’re not done.’ His eyes were dazed, obviously struggling to make sense of all that had happened in the last few minutes.

‘We only need one more sense,’ Bilbo answered, trying to keep his voice brisk and to the point. Thorin was falling, so he had to be the one to keep them standing. ‘And you can get used to that one while we prepare for your journey – getting a pony for you, packing food and…’ He trailed off, feeling how his throat tightened.

Thorin’s eyes were still unfocused, staring blindly in front of him as he breathed consciously through his mouth.

Making a decision, Bilbo moved closer to Thorin’s body, wounding his arms around Thorin’s waist and settling against him. ‘We’ll do it as quickly as we can, Thorin,’ he murmured, ‘you _will_ get there in time.’ After a moment, he felt Thorin’s arms slowly coming up and encircling his shoulders. 

Bilbo didn’t know why he did it. Thorin still hadn’t learnt the pleasure of a warm and friendly touch, so this gesture meant nothing to him. But Bilbo had nothing else to offer him. All words felt hollow and lacking. 

And so they stood there together in the silence, both of them aware of how soon they would be ripped apart.

 

X—X

 

Thorin sat alone in his bedroom, the mattress sinking under his prolonged weight and the wooden frame digging into his thighs. Thorin did nothing to relieve the pain, needing something to anchor him to the grim reality.

Bag End was quiet now. Bilbo had left a while ago for the market, needing to prepare for Thorin’s journey. He had talked at great length about the excellence of Shire ponies, his eyes avoiding Thorin’s as he walked with jerky steps through his home, his hands fidgeting by his sides. And now he was gone, leaving Thorin alone with his thoughts.

He leaned back to lie flat on the bed, staring unseeing at the ceiling above him. Not even an hour ago, he had lain like this in Bilbo’s garden. The blue sky had been above him and the scent of flowers around him. He had heard Bilbo’s low humming coming from nearby, and he remembered now how he had felt as close to bliss as it was surely possible for anyone to get.

Thorin squeezed his eyes together, trying to block out that memory. It had turned painful, taunting him with everything he had to leave behind. Everything he had to give up.

Thorin’s eyes stung and he blinked rapidly before turning his face into his pillow. It smelt of Bilbo’s soap. As did the clothes in his wardrobe, his hair ties on the dresser, and his travelling pack which had been stowed away under his bed since his arrival. Now, Thorin would have to use it again and after months on the road to Erebor, it would no longer smell like Bag End. Like Bilbo.

Thorin surged up from his bed, needing to get away. It would have been easier, he thought as he rubbed his face, it would have been easier if Bilbo hadn’t found a cure. It would have been easier if Thorin had never _known_. Before he had only felt pain, had been inured to it after a lifetime of nothing else. But now that he knew pleasure as well, how much more excruciating was the pain? And he hadn’t been prepared for it because Bilbo had shown him nothing but pleasure. 

And now his father needed him.

‘Thorin?’

Bilbo stood in the open doorway. In one hand he held a small glass. In the other, the last of the yellow potion.

Thorin drew in a deep breath, trying to calm himself. ‘You’re back.’

‘They have a pony for you at the stables.’ Bilbo walked into the room. ‘Her name is Bellis.’

Thorin nodded once.

‘I spoke to one of the farmers, as well,’ Bilbo continued, twisting the stem of the glass between two fingers. ‘He thinks that the weather will keep dry for the next couple of days. You should be out of the Shire by that time. I hope the fine weather will follow you all the way to Erebor.’

Bilbo still didn’t meet Thorin’s eyes, his gaze directed over his shoulder at the watercolour above Thorin’s bed.

Thorin looked down and saw how Bilbo’s tight fingers whitened around the neck of the decanter. Here it is, he thought, the final stage. No matter how much he wanted to deny it, there it was.

‘Bilbo?’ he asked.

Bilbo still didn’t meet his gaze. ‘Yes?’

‘I would like my final kiss now.’

Finally, those familiar eyes met his own. Their lids were drooped, and they blinked more than Thorin had ever seen them do before, but Thorin couldn’t have looked away from them even if the world had crumbled around them. 

Bilbo nodded, of course. Because he had never refused Thorin anything yet. He had always helped, explained, supported. And that was why Thorin couldn’t ask of Bilbo what he truly wanted to. 

_Come with me. Leave behind this place where they call you _witch_ and _Mad Baggins_. Even if you don’t feel like I do, come with me. Please. I can’t imagine my world without you._

But Thorin didn’t ask because he wouldn’t force Bilbo to make that choice. He had his work here in Hobbiton, and they would suffer if he left. And Thorin had a duty to his father and to his kingdom, who would suffer if he stayed away.

Together, Bilbo and Thorin watched the last few drops lazily fall from the lip down into the glass, before Bilbo finished tilting the empty decanter and placed it on the dresser. He held the glass aloft, watching how the sunlight from Thorin’s bedroom window made the liquid sparkle. Then he closed his eyes and downed it in one gulp, an obvious grimace stealing across his face.

Thorin sat down on the bed and waited, his hands hanging uselessly. Bilbo stood in front of him, hesitated for a moment, before sinking down to kneel on the floor. He took Thorin’s left hand between his own two and turned it gently until the palm was facing upwards. With a short glance at Thorin’s face, Bilbo licked his lips and leaned forward, brushing a kiss over the thin skin. 

As he let go of it, Thorin drew the hand to his chest, already feeling an itch spreading from the hand upwards. He looked down to see that Bilbo had taken hold of his right hand, kissing it for a moment longer than he had done to the left.

And then Thorin felt it.

It started like a heat. Not like when you burn yourself on the fireplace, but something more tender and alive. A pulse started thrumming through his skin, and nowhere was it doing so more strongly than in the palms of his hands, where the touch of Bilbo’s lips felt like a permanent mark. 

He looked down at the bent head in front of him and slowly, ever so slowly, turned his hand in Bilbo’s grip and reached up. The tips of his fingers had just reached the warm cheek when Bilbo gasped, looking up at Thorin, his eyes wide. Thorin stopped and waited for a breathless moment before feeling Bilbo lean his face softly against his hand. His fingers continued their quest up to the roundest part of the cheek, marvelling at the warmth he was feeling for the first time. The skin was soft, yielding to his touch. He paused at the eye, feeling how the fluttering of Bilbo’s eyelashes tickled the pads of his fingers. Finally, he went on to the hairline, following the swirl of a curl close to Bilbo’s ear. The hair was warmest at the root, close to Bilbo’s skin. He followed the strand to its very tip, enjoying the soft smoothness he found there.

He was suddenly interrupted in his explorations by the sound of small sob. He looked down to see how Bilbo’s shoulders shook, how his eyes were wrenched close. A gleam of wetness along the edge of the eyelashes betrayed him to Thorin’s gaze.

Thorin didn’t know what to say, so he simply turned his hand against Bilbo’s cheek, covering the side of his face from the chin to the brow, hoping that his warmth could calm Bilbo like he had calmed Thorin. 

Bilbo relaxed into Thorin’s touch, turning his face more fully into that large hand. Feeling the weight of Bilbo’s troubles, Thorin could do little else but smooth his fingertips over Bilbo’s curls again and again. They sat like that for a while, Thorin on the bed and Bilbo on his knees, but connected through that single touch. The room was quiet but for Bilbo’s stifled breathing.

‘Bilbo?’ Thorin whispered into that silence.

The eyes were rimmed red when Bilbo looked up at him. ‘Yes?’

‘Could you- could you kiss me again? Now that I can feel your touch?’

Bilbo licked his lips before he nodded once.

Bilbo shifted to sit up more fully. Thorin’s hands were turned over again, Bilbo’s fingers brushing over them. He held his breath as Bilbo bent his head.

The first kiss to his palm sent shocks up his arm, the feel of Bilbo’s lips tingling to the very centre of him. The second kiss to the other hand spread warmth throughout his body, making Thorin almost close his eyes in bliss.

Thorin breathed deeply to control his reactions. ‘More?’ he murmured.

Bilbo bit his lip in thought before standing up, supporting himself on Thorin’s thighs, the touch of his hands branding into Thorin’s skin, before he found his balance again. His hands travelled up Thorin’s body, skidding tantalizingly against his sides, before they pressed against his shoulders.

Bilbo leaned forward, his warm breath raising pleasurable goose bumps on Thorin’s neck, before he finally reached his ear. The shell of the ear burned in anticipation, and the first brush of Bilbo’s lips did little to stay the flames. The heat travelled to the other ear before it, too, was blessed by that simple touch.

‘More,’ Thorin whispered, the only sound in the room besides Bilbo’s heavy breath.

Bilbo took a step back, his hands guiding Thorin to look up at him. Then he leaned forward again. His lips felt deliciously heavy on the bridge of Thorin’s nose, leaving behind a slight dampness. The skin tingled as it dried in the warm air.

‘More.’

If Bilbo noticed how Thorin’s eyes glistened before they closed, he didn’t say anything. He only left behind feather-light kisses on each lid, his lips catching slightly on the thin, puckering skin around the eye.

Thorin opened his eyes and looked up at Bilbo. He was so close.

‘More.’

Bilbo’s gaze flitted shortly between Thorin’s eyes and his mouth before finally moving in completely and meeting Thorin’s lips in a kiss.

It was a fairly simple touch. Just skin against skin. It shouldn’t have mattered more than two hands meeting in a handshake. But the world buzzed around him, making Thorin close his eyes against it. It was too much. Simply too much. All of his being seemed to converge into that solitary point before bursting outwards once more, zinging through him with all that energy could be. He was glad he was sitting down, because his lower body felt ready to collapse at any moment while all his attention centred on the meeting between Bilbo’s lips and his own. 

When Bilbo moved back, Thorin felt like he could finally breathe again, could finally exist as himself again. He looked up at Bilbo with his mouth open but no words came out. Instead, he stretched up and bumped his forehead gently against Bilbo’s, one hand on his neck to keep him close.

Bilbo closed his eyes and pressed into Thorin. ‘I’m going to miss you,’ he whispered, ‘so much.’

‘Me, too,’ Thorin murmured. ‘I mean--’ He shook his head. ‘I’m going to miss _you_ , too.’

Bilbo gently pulled one of Thorin’s braids. ‘Silly dwarf,’ he said with a fond smile.

This was the closest the two of them would ever get, Thorin thought as he looked up at Bilbo, the closest to speaking the truth to each other. And it would have to be enough.

Because Thorin was leaving in the morning.

 

X—X

 

Bellis was a stout pony with a tan coat and a black mane. She followed you with a calm and even gait and waited patiently while she was being readied for her journey. Someone had obviously overindulged her at some point in her life because she had a habit of stretching out her neck, searching for treats in the palm of your hand or the bottom of your pocket, her soft lips nuzzling you as she did.

Bilbo hated her. 

He hated the saddle that was tightened around her sides. Hated every pack he had to add to her load. Hated how the stables had groomed her coat in preparation for the journey. Hated the glint of her freshly shod hooves, the metal hardy enough to last her all the way to Erebor. And he hated that right now she was grazing in front of Bag End, waiting for her rider.

Bilbo moved away from the window, running an idle hand over a nearby table as he did. He turned in the direction of the bedrooms, staring at Thorin’s door. Any moment now, any moment it would open up and Thorin would step out, tying off his travelling sack and hefting it over one shoulder. He would give Bilbo a small smile in greeting, he always did, and Bilbo would have to smile back. So, he took these moments to prepare.

When Thorin came out, the sack was already over his shoulders, the unfamiliar weight obviously pulling at his tense muscles.

‘All ready?’ Bilbo asked, feeling his cheeks strain.

Thorin nodded, adjusting one of the straps. ‘It feels heavier than when I arrived.’

Bilbo shifted from one foot to the other. ‘I’m afraid the Shire has made you soft,’ he said. ‘You’ll carry it with more ease once you get closer to Erebor.’

Thorin looked down at his boots. ‘Yes.’

Bilbo picked up a cloth bag from the table. ‘I’ll be following you some of the way.’

Thorin’s face brightened. ‘Oh?’

‘Yes.’ Bilbo nodded. ‘The blue vervains have flowered along the banks of the Brandywine River, and I need to harvest some for my stocks.’ It was partly true, though Bilbo didn’t have to tell Thorin that if he waited for another week both banks would likely be flowering and not just the southern one. He’d have to make a second trip then. It would be something to fill the silence, at least.

‘Blue vervains?’ Thorin walked slowly out into the hall, hesitating before Bilbo fell into step next to him. ‘And what do you use those for?’

‘They have no direct properties, but they provide the necessary oil for many of my potions without disrupting any of the other ingredients,’ Bilbo said as he pulled open the door and they stepped outside.

‘How many different potions do you use them for?’ Thorin shielded his eyes against sun as he looked over the field below Bilbo’s home.

Bilbo frowned slightly at this odd question. ‘Twenty to thirty, at least,’ he said.

Thorin looked back at Bilbo. ‘Hobbiton is lucky to have you, Bilbo,’ he said, his eyes soft in his shadowed face.

Bilbo looked away. ‘Yes, well…’ How could he tell Thorin that what had felt like a life’s calling, now felt like a lifelong curse? Like blocks of stone tied around his feet when all he wanted to do was run.

A soft whinny grabbed their attention, and they turned to see Bellis stretching her neck over Bilbo’s fence. She blew out a large breath in greeting.

‘Hello, girl.’ Bilbo reached out and rubbed a hand down her nose. ‘Come, Thorin.’ He waved him closer. ‘Come and meet your travelling companion. This is Bellis.’

Thorin held out slow hand, brushing along her neck just below the mane. ‘She’s so warm.’ He breathed out, meeting Bilbo’s gaze over her head.

Bilbo smiled. He would miss Thorin like this. ‘Feel her mane.’

Thorin did. ‘Very thick.’ He rubbed a couple of strands between his fingers. ‘And rougher than yours.’

Bilbo breathed out a short laugh. ‘I should hope so.’

Thorin’s hands travelled up to her ears, feeling how they twitched against his palm.

‘Here.’ Bilbo crouched, breaking off a dandelion by his feet. ‘See if she’ll like this.’ He handed it to Thorin, directing him to hold the flower in a flat hand and offer it to Bellis.

She lowered her head and sniffed once. Then she delicately opened her lips, nipping the flower from his hand.

Thorin smiled. ‘I’m tempted to hand-feed her all her meals from here to Erebor, just to feel that soft sensation again.’ He rubbed Bellis’s nose, tugging at her forelock.

Bilbo had to look away from that sweet image. Instead, he looked up to check the position of the sun. It had almost covered the first half of its travel across the sky. Bilbo sighed. Delaying this would only make it hurt more.

‘If you want to cover a good amount of distance today,’ he said, ‘then we’d better start off.’

Thorin dropped his hand. ‘Yes.’

Bilbo went to untie Bellis, his hands fumbling with the loose knot. After checking that her gear was correctly fitted, Bilbo turned to make his way down the path, expecting Thorin to be loitering right behind him. But he soon stopped when he saw Thorin standing still next to the open gate.

His hand kept opening and closing around the top of the gate, the grain of the wood threatening to leave splinters in his unyielding fingers. His gaze was fixed on Bag End but his face betrayed none of what he was feeling. Bilbo knew with absolute certainty that Thorin had enjoyed his stay in Hobbiton, but there wasn’t smile at happy memories or a tear at the loss of them. His eyes simply roamed over the front of Bilbo’s home, taking in everything from the stony path to the grassy roof.

‘Thorin?’ Bilbo shifted the reins from one hand to the other and took a step closer, feeling Bellis bump into his back when he stopped.

‘I was just wondering,’ Thorin said, ‘what Bag End might look like in the autumn or winter.’

Bilbo now stood next to him, both of them facing the same way. ‘It looks much the same, I think. Only less green. Sometimes white.’ He looked up at Thorin. ‘You might see it for yourself one day,’ Bilbo said, the words sounding like lies as soon as they left his mouth.

The corners of Thorin’s lips lifted in an imitation of a smile. ‘Perhaps.’

They both turned without speaking, heading down the path away from Bag End. Slow clip-clops came from behind them as Bellis followed closely.

Bilbo and Thorin walked quietly, heading south. Somewhere, Bilbo could hear the sounds of children playing, their delighted shrieks intruding on their shared silence. If it had been any other day, Bilbo might have made some grumbling remark about noisy fauntlings, and Thorin would have teasingly asked him to use his witchcraft to make them vanish. They might have started into a mock discussion about the moral boundaries of witchery or maybe just shared a laugh before descending into an easy silence.

The silence now was anything but easy. It stretched out between them, filled with everything unsaid. Because what would be the point of saying it now when there was no time left? Soon, there was going to be half a world and a lifetime between them. What did words matter then?

Let us part as true friends, Bilbo thought, instead of dwelling on what could have been.

The sound of the coursing river roared behind a small border of trees, making them involuntarily slow their step. When they reached the river, the road forked off to the left, joining the Great East Road. That was the road that would take Thorin to the Misty Mountains and beyond.

Bilbo stood looking down it, feeling Bellis nose against his back.

‘This is it.’ Thorin’s voice sounded from behind him. Bilbo closed his eyes shortly. He would have to remember those deep tones.

‘Yes,’ Bilbo said.

He felt a touch and looked down to see Thorin’s fingers shaking as they took hold of his hand.

‘I wanted to say--’ Thorin cleared his throat before looking into Bilbo’s eyes. ‘That is, I _have_ to say that what has happened here in the last couple of months…’ He lifted Bilbo’s hand and held it between his own two. ‘It has changed my life. _You_ have changed my life.’ His voice wavered on the last word. ‘Thank you.’ He held Bilbo’s hand closer to his body. ‘Thank you.’

Bilbo looked down at their intertwined hands. ‘It was my pleasure, Thorin.’ He looked up into Thorin’s eyes. ‘Truly, it was.’

The world seemed to stand still for a moment while the two of them said their wordless farewell, but soon enough Thorin’s hands slipped from Bilbo’s grip. His eyes focused on Thorin’s back as he walked to where Bellis was grazing and climbed up into the saddle. The leather creaked as he moved in his seat and brought the pony closer to Bilbo.

Bilbo reached out, almost without thinking, and adjusted one of the packs which had shifted on the pony’s back. His hand slowed as it got near Thorin’s thigh and finally came to rest just above the knee. 

He looked up at Thorin. ‘Farewell,’ he said.

Thorin covered his hand with his own. ‘Farewell, Bilbo.’

The road was straight for a good while, allowing Bilbo to stand and watch as Thorin rode away. As it bended slightly south, a low branch from a tree rustled in the wind, bobbing up and down over the path. Thorin ducked slightly to get under it and then all at once he was gone from Bilbo’s sight. 

The sound of wide wings blew past Bilbo, and he looked up to see a large raven flying east. He wondered if it was one of Erebor’s messengers, hurrying home to herald the return of the crown prince.

Bilbo turned west; the flowers of the river bank forgotten as he walked slowly home to Bag End.


	8. To Understand

The latch fell softly into place as Thorin closed the door behind him. 

He shivered. The fireplace had been roaring in his father’s bedroom, and the chilly hallway was both a relief and a shock after that heat.

‘Was he happy to see you?’

Thorin looked up at his sister who waited quietly on the other side of the hallway.

‘I think so.’ He exhaled a long breath. ‘I don’t know. He called me by name but I don’t know if he saw me.’

Her eyes softened as she nodded in understanding. ‘He’s had better days.’

‘When did it begin?’

‘Sometime in the middle of summer. He’d start growing unusually tired at council meetings, diplomatic dinners, often losing the thread of the conversation. Then one morning his personal servant knocked insistently on my door, telling me that his Majesty wasn’t able to get out of bed.’ She pressed her lips together at the memory. ‘He’s stayed there ever since.’

Thorin swallowed. ‘What does Óin say?’

She blinked rapidly. ‘He says--’ Her hands twisted in front of her. ‘He says— Oh, Thorin.’ She covered her eyes with her hand, her shoulders rounding in on her body, almost turning away from her brother as she tried to control her uneven breath.

Thorin watched Dís for a moment before stepping closer, slowly raising his arms before enfolding her in a firm embrace. He could feel her stiffening slightly in surprise, her breath stopping for a moment, before she slowly rested her head against his shoulder, her arms holding him as well. Her tear-streaked cheek touched the side of his neck and the smell of metal was in her hair. He tightened his arms around her, needing her warmth.

They stood together for a while, the silence of the hallway quieter than the silence at their father’s bedside.

Her forehead pressed against his shoulder. ‘This is the first time,’ Dís whispered, ‘the first time you’ve held me this close and _meant_ it, truly meant it.’ She sniffled against him.

‘I know,’ Thorin said.

Her arms tightened around his middle. ‘When your first letters came, telling us what had happened, what the hobbit healer had done for you—’

‘Bilbo,’ Thorin corrected, almost without thought.

She leaned back and looked up at him, her eyes fastening on his. ‘What _Bilbo_ had done for you – I couldn’t believe it. It sounded like Mahal himself had appeared in the Shire and shown you his favour. After all these years…’ She shook her head, a small smile pulling at her lips. ‘It’s incredible.’

‘If it was Mahal,’ Thorin said, ‘then he chose Bilbo Baggins as his instrument.’ He smiled as well. ‘And I’m glad he did.’

Dís brushed the last of her tears from her cheeks as she moved back from the embrace. She looked up at her brother, trying to read this new expression on Thorin’s face. ‘You should have invited him to come with you,’ she said. ‘You must have known that he would have been celebrated as a returning hero by our people and showered with gifts of gratitude. I, myself, am ready to offer him half of our treasury for returning my brother to me.’

Thorin looked away, allowing himself to imagine Bag End. It would be filled to the brim with dwarven gold and jewellery if Dís had her way. Every shelf, table and mantelpiece would be covered with it, and Bilbo would have to move very quietly through his home for fear of disrupting any of the fineries. Thorin smiled wider as he imagined Bilbo eating his scrambled eggs from gold plates and drinking his tea from gold cups. Somehow, it just didn’t fit.

‘I couldn’t ask him to come,’ he said to her. ‘He’s the only healer in his village. It would be unfair of me to - I couldn’t ask him.’

Dís nodded, still studying Thorin’s face.

Thorin looked away from that probing gaze. ‘You didn’t move my chambers while I was away, did you?’

‘No, they’re where you left them. I had your bags and packs brought up.’ She walked in the direction of Thorin’s chambers and he followed. ‘Your pony seems to be quite sturdy and strong. I think she might do very well as a mining pony. What do you think?’

‘No.’ Thorin couldn’t imagine a creature from the green Shire down in the dark pits of Erebor. ‘Just – just keep her in the royal stables for now. Tell the grooms to keep her well-fed and exercised.’

‘As you wish,’ Dís said, stopping in front of the door to Thorin’s chambers.

Thorin put a hand on the handle. ‘I’d--’ He turned his head slightly towards Dís. ‘I’d like to be alone for now. It was a long journey.’

She nodded. ‘Of course.’ She brushed a hand over his back and looked up at him. ‘I’m so happy to have you back again.’

Thorin gave her a small smile before opening the door and stepping into his rooms.

The first thing that struck him was their sparseness. No hangings or paintings decorated the walls, there were no carvings in the wood of his furniture, and every fabric was a basic brown or grey. Thorin hadn’t needed anything more than this half a year ago. 

His packs had been placed in the middle of the room, the smaller bags leaning against his filled travelling pack. Thorin took quick steps, walking to them with purpose, needing to find what he had packed with care a couple of months ago in Bag End.

It was covered with several layers of cloth and nestled away between his clothes. Its blunt edges appeared as he uncovered it, running his fingers over the simple wooden frame. He lifted it away from the pack and placed it on the seat of a chair, leaning against the back.

It was the Shire, or at least the part of it which contained Bag End. The small watercolour had hung over Thorin’s bed there, and it would now be the first decoration in his home at Erebor. 

His eyes took in the lush green of the scenery, needing it now more than ever. The round doors of the hobbit holes were spread across it, the dots of colour lending some cheer to the image. At the very top of the picture was a green door. Thorin focused in on it, kidding himself into seeing a small figure sitting on the bench outside the smial. He could just make out the white of the shirt and the red of the waistcoat. He wondered how long he had been sitting there. Had he just enjoyed a small cup of ale after dinner? Or had he spent all afternoon reading in the sunshine? Would the wind pick up, rustling his curls and making him shiver? Would he stand up, stretch and walk back inside? And then Thorin’s eyes focused on the closed, green door again, and the figure was gone from the bench.

He blinked. The green colours receded from view, and he was standing in his rooms in Erebor once more.

The sound of quick steps came from outside his door, like someone hurrying past to get to his father’s chambers. Maybe a servant with a change of linen or a tray of simple foods for the bedbound king. Thorin felt a stab of guilt. His father was close to passing into the other world, and all he could do was stand here and disappear into his memories of a single summer. As much as Bilbo had changed his life, he had a duty to his father now.

He heard a door open and close. He remembered how he had looked, lying quietly in that bed. His father had never looked smaller than he did then. His crown had been removed along with his robes of state, and he looked frail and old. His skin was thin, stretching over his bones. His hair and beard lay listless. A great king of dwarves laid low at the end of his life.

_Could you have helped him, Bilbo? I never asked and you never said. Maybe it was because we both knew the answer. No matter how deep you dug in your library, no matter how many plants you gathered in the forest, it wouldn’t have helped, would it? Because there’s no cure for death - the final death at the end of a long life._

Thorin felt an itch in his body, like he was waiting for something to happen. He tried sitting down but soon bolted up again, walking stiffly around the room. He didn’t want to see anyone else but he also didn’t want to be alone with his thoughts. Making a decision, he walked back out the door and went to sit by his father’s bed.

 

X—X

 

The snow was falling thick and fast outside, covering the view from Bag End in a white blanket. Bilbo stood back from the window, letting the small curtain fall down as he did. It was the eve of the first day of Yule, and all of Hobbiton had retreated indoors to gather with their families in preparation for the festivities.

Bilbo looked up at the portraits of his parents over the fireplace, framed as they were by some evergreens in the spirit of the season. Maybe he would even bake some of Baggins special Yule bread to have with his tea tomorrow.

The crackle of the fire was the only sound as he settled into the chair in front, picking up his new book in preparation for an evening of reading.

After a couple of pages, he stopped and reread a particularly amusing passage. He lingered over the words, enjoying the apt turn of phrase. He wanted to read it out loud, feel his tongue twist around it, giving his best recital to bring out the comedy.

He looked up from the page, preparing to perform to the audience. But there was no one there. The chair on the other side of the fireplace was empty. It had been empty for more than four months now. And now Bilbo felt silly, reading to an empty room.

He cleared his throat and looked back down at the page, trying to focus on the words. They had often done that, Thorin and him. They had often sat next to each other after the last meal of the day, one or both of them reading. Some evenings they’d do more talking than reading, others they were content to merely sit together in silence, caught up in their own books. And sometimes they would read to each other. Bilbo preferred reciting the humorous bits, wanting to make Thorin laugh. And Thorin would often go through Bilbo’s histories of Middle-earth, reading out every passage where elves were being greedy, prideful or just plain idiotic with a barely concealed glee before Bilbo challenged him into another playful discussion about the worth of elves.

Bilbo smiled. Those evenings were what he missed the most, now that he was alone again.

The log settled in the fire, the sound of it bringing Bilbo back from his memories. He shook his head, relieved that this seemed to happen less and less now. It had been a lot harder in the beginning. He remembered returning to Bag End on that day. The windows had looked dark in the sunshine, making his home seem hollow and empty. When he had stepped through the door, the silence of the many rooms had overwhelmed him in a way that it hadn’t done since the death of his parents. And in the days following, he would often stop what he was doing when something - a word, a taste, a smell – would remind him of Thorin, of something he had said, had done, the way he laughed, the way he grumbled. And so Bilbo would stop, and he would remember. 

He looked unseeing into the flames of the fireplace. Those had been the toughest days.

Bilbo shook his head again and decided to make another attempt at his book. But he had only read two sentences when he was interrupted by three heavy knocks at his door.

He frowned. Most of Hobbiton knew well enough to stay inside when the snow fell like this and even more so on the eve of Yule when the pleasures of home were that much more enticing.

He stood up, leaving the book behind in the seat of the chair. He wondered briefly if there was any need of his help but the knocks had been measured and even. Not the frantic pounding of someone in need of urgent attention. And they had been quite heavy, very unlike the light knocking of a hobbit.

Bilbo suddenly stopped halfway between his chair and the door, feeling the colour leave his cheeks. What if…? It was unlikely to be him but maybe someone of his kin with a message for Bilbo? No ravens had stopped at Bag End since Thorin’s departure, though Bilbo had often tracked their movement across the sky until they were out of sight. He felt silly hoping for anything after months of nothing but…

He almost fell over his feet, covering the distance to the door as fast as he could. He took a moment to calm his breathing before pulling open the door to greet his visitor.

‘Gandalf?’ Bilbo took a step back, blinking fast as he looked up at the wizard. ‘Wha- what are you doing here?’

‘Now, Bilbo Baggins, is that any way to greet an old friend who has come to visit?’ Gandalf’s deep voice held notes of amusement.

Bilbo’s hand still held onto the door frame. ‘I didn’t know you were coming past the Shire.’

‘Neither did I, until I was. And here I am.’ A small pile of snow fell off the brim of his hat. ‘Am I invited in?’

‘No, no – of course. Yes.’ Bilbo stepped back, averting his gaze, afraid that Gandalf would read too much in it. ‘Won’t you come in?’

The wizard’s robe swept over the floor, the edge of it stiff from the freezing snow. Bilbo closed the door after him, leaning back against it as he watched Gandalf duck his head around the hanging candelabra.

‘I suppose you’ll want tea?’ Bilbo regretted the curt words as soon as he had said them, but the disappointment was still stinging him.

Gandalf narrowed his eyes, studying Bilbo. ‘Please.’

Trudging past, Bilbo barely offered Gandalf a second glance as he made his way to the kitchen. Rarely did the wizard appear without some purpose of his own. But Bilbo had learned a long time ago that this purpose would only appear when Gandalf was ready. It would be no use questioning him before he had at least finished his first cup of tea.

Steam billowed up from the kettle, and Bilbo poured the hot water over the leaves in the pot before bringing it out into his parlour where Gandalf sat waiting.

‘Thank you,’ he said, warming his hands around the cup as Bilbo poured. ‘It’s a bitterly cold night to be out walking.’

Bilbo sat down, filling his own cup. ‘I somehow didn’t think that wizards felt the cold?’

‘Oh, we do, we do. Perhaps more than others at times.’

Bilbo took a cautious sip of tea instead of replying to that cryptic remark.

Gandalf finished his own sip. ‘I’ve been meaning to congratulate you,’ he said, ‘on your great success in curing the dwarven prince.’

‘Thorin,’ Bilbo added quickly.

‘Ah.’ Gandalf nodded. ‘And I also wanted to know how you did it.’

Bilbo pursed his lips. ‘Well, after Thorin told me what you had said, it was fairly easy to guess what you meant.’

Gandalf tilted his head slightly to the right. ‘What I said?’

‘Yes, you know. About the – oh, what was it? – about the _original view of Bilbo Baggins_. And that’s what led me to the large oak.’

‘Oak?’

‘Yes, with the summer mistletoe?’

‘Ah, you used the life force of the mistletoe?’ Gandalf nodded. ‘Very good, very good.’

Bilbo frowned. ‘Don’t sound so surprised. You’re the one who pointed me to it.’

‘Was I?’ Gandalf’s brows lifted. ‘Oh, I suppose I was. Well, it all turned out as it should anyway.’

‘No, hang on.’ Bilbo stabbed the air with his finger. ‘Are you saying that you meant no riddle with those words?’

The corners of his mouth twitched. ‘Not everyone is as fond of riddles are you are, Bilbo. I’m sure I only meant those words as a recommendation of your skills to old King Thráin. And I was right, after all.’ He smiled gently at Bilbo over his tea cup.

Bilbo breathed out a short laugh as he dropped his hand. ‘All this time, I thought I had been acting on the advice of a wizard. And it turns out I was relying on nothing but my own judgment.’

‘As you should be.’ Gandalf hummed as he put down his tea cup. ‘And it was a good thing you found the cure so fast, and that Thorin was able to reach Erebor before his father’s death.’

Bilbo stilled, holding his breath. ‘The king is dead?’

‘He passed away at the beginning of winter, surrounded by his family as he drew his last breaths. The ravens were sent out bearing the message shortly after.’

Bilbo looked down, focusing on his hands in his lap. The king was dead. And some small piece of hope that Bilbo didn’t even know he had been holding onto was dead, too. It had been foolish of him to even entertain the idea that Thorin might be able to return to him, even if it was just for a visit. Because now the crown prince had his duties to his kingdom. The king is dead. Long live the king.

‘I’m--’ He cleared his throat. ‘I’m sorry to hear it.’

‘And now it remains to be seen how Thorin will do as a ruler. Thankfully, he has his sister to help him.’

‘I’m sure he will do very well.’ Bilbo was still looking at his hands. ‘He has a kind and honest nature.’

‘Does he, indeed?’ Gandalf said before finishing the last of his tea. ‘The sickness must have concealed that when I met him before the summer.’ He leaned back in his chair. ‘But now, would you mind terribly giving an old man shelter over the Yule days? I’m afraid I can’t face this snow again before I’ve rested my feet and dried my robe.’

Bilbo blinked. ‘Of course! I’m sorry that I didn’t invite you immediately. My mind seems to be miles away these days.’

‘I can see that. So, I invited myself.’ Gandalf’s eyes twinkled. ‘And I wanted to see if you’ve acquired any new additions to your excellent library. I am sure it will soon rival the one in Minas Tirith in everything but size!’

Bilbo gave a small smile. ‘I’m sure it won’t.’ He pushed back from the table. ‘I did get a very interesting volume recently,’ he said, standing up and moving away from the table. ‘But some of it is in a language unknown to me. Perhaps you can look at it for me?’

‘Of course, dear boy. Of course.’

And so they spent the evening together, pouring over the foreign words and phrases until the fire slumbered in its crate and the candles were low. Gandalf talked no more about Thorin and his father, and Bilbo didn’t ask.

It was only when Bilbo was alone in his room, when he closed his eyes, trying to sleep, that the memories returned to him again. And the strongest one was of Thorin lying in the grass outside Bag End and smiling up at him. 

 

X—X

 

‘Come on, Uncle Thorin!’

‘Take it easy,’ Dís warned as she followed Fíli and Kíli down the stairs, Thorin coming up behind her. ‘They’ll knock a hole in their heads with the way they’re sprinting around.’

‘They’re just boys,’ Thorin said, ‘and they’re excited about showing me their surprise. And Mahal knows I need something exciting after that council meeting.’

She slowed at the bottom of the stairs, waiting for him to catch up to her. ‘It wasn’t as bad as all that.’

‘You think spending an entire day discussing trade regulations is exciting?’

She shrugged. ‘There were some interesting points raised, and it was a necessary discussion to have.’

‘ _You_ might find it interesting. I struggled to follow most of it.’

She looked up at him. ‘It will get easier, Thorin.’

‘Will it?’ he asked, striding forward to follow his nephews.

It was the start of spring, several months after the death of his father. The King’s crown lay in the treasury, waiting for the day when Thorin was ready to take up the mantle, to take up his birthright. But while Thorin might be born to be king, he had yet to feel like he was meant to be king. All his life had been drowned by his sickness and now, after finally being able to breathe the air again for a short while, he was being pushed into a position for which he had never prepared.

He looked back at his sister following him. _She_ had prepared. She had taken up all the work a king’s heir should have been doing and done it better than Thorin would have ever done. And she liked it, as well. Thorin thought back to how she had been in that council chamber – listening attentively to others while her eyes were sparkling, her mind already formulating a counter-argument and then delivering it with relish. He also remembered her at their father’s funeral procession, the two of them walking together at the front. She had carried herself like a queen, head held high but with sorrow in her face. He remembered how their people had looked to her to guide their behaviour in that time of grief, how one dwarrowdam had reached out and kissed the hem of her robe, wanting to pay homage to such obvious majesty. Dís was everything that a monarch should be. And Erebor would be lost without her.

He reached the door to his room where Fíli and Kíli were fairly bouncing with excitement.

‘The surprise is in my room?’ he asked.

‘In a manner of speaking,’ Fíli said with a grin.

‘Yes, you will definitely _see_ the surprise in your room,’ Kíli added, nudging his brother in his side.

‘Stop trying to be cryptic, boys,’ Dís said as she joined them. ‘And give your uncle his surprise. Maybe that will put a smile on his face.’

Thorin glanced at her as Fíli and Kíli opened the door and beckoned them to come inside.

The room looked the same as when Thorin had left it that morning, nothing added and nothing taken away. The watercolour still hung over his bed, its green colours looking especially vibrant against the stone wall.

Fíli and Kíli went around the room, dousing candles and banking the fire until the only light was the pale one coming from the window behind the curtains. They led the way to the window, pulling and pushing at Thorin until he was positioned perfectly centred in front of it before each grabbing a curtain.

‘Ready?’

Thorin rolled his eyes good-naturedly. ‘Ready.’

The curtains were pulled back. At first, they only revealed the early night sky, the dark blue at the horizon blending into the deepest black at the top of the archway of the world. But as Thorin stepped closer to the window, small spots of light emerged from the darkness. He looked up, following the lines of stars, comparing their sizes and seeing shapes emerging. They spread out further and further, creating a ceiling of speckled light.

Without thinking, he opened the window and leaned out, craning his neck to take in as much of the sky as he could. It seemed to be above him and all around him, the darkness not closing in on him but unwinding into all directions, unending and full of stars.

When he had ridden from the Shire to the Erebor, his gaze had been down and front and his mind always hundreds of miles behind him. When he had arrived at Erebor, he had burrowed deep into the mountain, first attending his father’s bed and then his funeral. And when the crown had waited for him, he had been overwhelmed with a king’s responsibilities. There had been no time or inclination to look at the stars.

‘We met some sort of travelling wise woman in Dale today,’ Fíli said behind him. ‘She said that the night sky would be filled with more stars tonight than on any other night in the year.’

‘And we thought that no one would appreciate it more than you, Uncle Thorin’

Dís saw her brother’s mute appreciation and patted her sons on the back. ‘You’re good boys,’ she said with a small smile.

Kíli tried to catch his uncle’s eyes. ‘Did you ever see anything like this before, Uncle Thorin?’

Thorin’s lips felt dry and he licked them. ‘N-no. Never.’

Fíli tilted his head to the side. ‘You can’t see the stars in the Shire?’

Thorin looked over his shoulder at him. ‘I’m sure you can. But Bilbo never showed them to me.’

‘Well,’ Kíli said, ‘then it’s a good thing you came back to us so _we_ could show you.’

Thorin turned and looked back up at the sky. 

But he would have shown me, he thought. If they had had time enough, Bilbo would have shown him the stars. Thorin was certain of it. But it had only been one summer. And anyway, what would have been enough time to spend with Bilbo? More than one season? A year? A life?

Thorin breathed deeply. Even though it was spring, the night air still bore the crisp frost down from the top of the mountain, carrying with it the smell of many freshly sprouting herbs and weeds. It reminded him of the smell in Bilbo’s kitchen when he was drying his plants above the stove.

As he focused on a particularly bright star, a sudden unsettling thought entered into his mind. Maybe Bilbo had never looked, really looked at the sky at night? After all, their light does nothing for Bilbo’s plants, and you can’t cure a sickness by knowing the constellations. You can’t read them like a book nor gather them in a sack for later use. The stars were for the travellers, navigating through the world. And they were for the farmers and the priests, keeping track of the seasons and sowing the right crop or performing the right ritual. But Bilbo was not a farmer or a priest, and he was definitely not a traveller. He had no need of the stars, so maybe he had never looked at them.

Thorin’s hands gripped the windowsill hard, his skin whitening against the stone.

‘Uncle Thorin?’ 

The voice was distant, so distant that he had no idea whether it belonged to Fíli or Kíli. Something had shaken lose in his mind, and now his memories, his duties and his wishes whirled between each other as he tried to recapture them and put them in their proper places. And in the centre was the urgent desire to show Bilbo the stars, to give this small thing back to him who had given the world to Thorin. Everything else seemed to pale in contrast to this single urge. And Thorin’s thoughts calmed and he started to make sense of it.

‘Thorin?’

He felt a hand on his arm, and he finally turned back to his family. Dís stood the closest, a deep wrinkle running down the middle of her brow as she looked at him. Fíli and Kíli stood behind her, sharing a concerned glance.

‘Was it too much at once?’ Dís asked. ‘The stars, I mean?’

‘No.’ He shook his head, feeling it clear for the first time in months. ‘Not at all. They helped me to see clearer and further. And I came to a realization.’

‘What realization?’

‘That I know now what I need to do. And I need your help to do it.’

 

X—X

 

Bilbo’s leather satchel beat against the middle of his thigh as he walked slowly down Bagshot Row. It had been a long and busy day. First, there had been the farmhand who had cut his foot with his scythe. The wound had been deep and the patient had been squirmy, giving Bilbo an ache in his back after bending over for so long to clean and bandage it. Then there were the family of eight where all the fauntlings had woken up with mysterious rashes which needed to be first cooled, then diagnosed as the effects of playing among stinging mulberry bushes for an entire day, and now Bilbo had an evening of mixing up enough ointment to last the family for a week to look forward to. Lastly, there had been a broken ankle which Bilbo had reset and supported as best as he could, but he still worried that it wouldn’t heal properly and that Iris Cotton would walk with a slight limp for the rest of her life.

He sighed and adjusted the strap over his shoulder and trudged onwards. The sun was unusually hot for the last month of spring, its beams only managing to make Bilbo more tired and grumpy. But at least it was better than winter. During the winter, he had spent too much time indoors with his memories as his only company. Bilbo needed the work, needed something to occupy his hands and his mind. Even if it only amounted to tiresome days like this one.

He would have to cook dinner when he got home and as he walked, he mentally went through the contents of his pantry, trying to come up with ideas which would take the least amount of effort to prepare. And then he would disappear into his bed, wanting to end the day as soon as possible.

Bag End came into view. Bilbo didn’t want to look at it, almost expecting there to be a line of more people asking for his help. But as he walked closer, he was able to make out some movement on the roof over his door. It wasn’t the wind rustling the tree or a foolhardy fauntling who had climbed too high. It was small and black and… Bilbo squinted. Was that wings?

The bird turned sideways, revealing its distinctive black beak, the beak of a large raven.

The leather satchel picked up speed in its swings, beating harder against Bilbo’s thigh. But he paid it no mind as he ran as quickly as he could towards his home.


	9. To Live

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry I haven't replied to any of the comments on the last chapter. I've been a bit swamped by life these last few months. But please know that I've read and re-read all of them and that they meant the world to me.
> 
> I was overwhelmed by lovely birthday presents given by talented artists on tumblr who made fan art for this fic: Ruto drew the scene from chapter three where [Bilbo teaches Thorin to cook scrambled eggs](http://rutobuka2.tumblr.com/post/126189944219/i-drew-this-for-hildyjs-birthday-and-it-is-late), Quel drew [Bilbo and Thorin dancing at the Summer Festival](http://tosquinha.tumblr.com/post/126141738012/happy-belated-birthday-hildyj-3) from chapter 6, and Radio drew [all five of the healing kisses](http://radiorcrist.tumblr.com/post/126133265041/to-taste-to-see-to-smell-to-hear-and-to-touch/).
> 
> And this chapter contains a very vague allusion to thoughts of suicide. It doesn't take up much space in the fic but I thought I should mention it.

Bilbo was breathing like the big bellows at Hobbiton’s smithy when he finally reached Bag End, almost bending over from the exertion while he stared expectantly up at the large raven.

‘Yes?’ he huffed, trying to still his heaving chest.

‘Oh, you’re back, are you?’ The raven strutted back and forth on his roof from one side of the door to the other.

‘As you can see.’ Bilbo swallowed a lump in his throat as he waited for this blasted bird to deliver its message.

‘I do have other business, you know? I can’t spend an entire day, waiting around this hole in the ground.’

Bilbo smiled tightly, his patience almost at an end. ‘I apologise for keeping you waiting.’

‘Well.’ Its beak closed with a click.

The leather satchel had grown heavy over Bilbo’s shoulder and he let it fall into the grass, his gaze never moving from the bird on top of his home.

‘But you must have business with me,’ he said, ‘since you’ve spent so much time at my door.’

‘I do.’ The bird fluttered it wings and now sat at the top of the circle of Bilbo’s door before addressing him with a deep, croaky voice. ‘For the service you have provided the great kingdom of Erebor, the royal family of Durin has decided that you should be given a gift.’

‘Oh.’ Bilbo’s shoulders dropped. ‘No,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘I don’t need a gift; I didn’t help Thorin for any reward.’

‘ _His Royal Highness_ was instrumental in arranging this present for you. Your refusal would insult him.’

Bilbo doubted that very much. The Thorin he had known, who he had spent that summer with, would never take offense at something so trivial. But now that he knew this gift would be coming directly from Thorin, he was more curious to find out what it was.

He folded his arms in front of him. ‘Do you have it with you? This gift?’

‘The size of it makes it impossible to be carried by me or any of my kin—’

‘Not even on a line between you?’ Bilbo interrupted. He was getting tired of this strutting, self-important bird. His hopes of any sort message from Thorin had already been dashed. This messenger didn’t bring words of friendship or even…even love from Thorin; it only brought promises of cold treasure and payment for services rendered.

The raven fluffed out its feathers. ‘Will you receive this gift?’

Bilbo sighed. ‘Why not?’ It was probably some golden trinket from Erebor’s treasury which he could display on a shelf as some foreign souvenir, only remembering to dust it once in a while. It wouldn’t remind him of Thorin because he had never known Thorin as he was in his own land. He had only known him in the Shire.

‘And if I’m not at home,’ Bilbo said as he bent down to pick up his satchel. ‘Just tell whoever’s bringing the gift not to wait for me; just leave the thing outside.’ He waved a lazy hand at the bench as he walked towards his door.

‘Really!’ The raven squawked.

‘Oh, don’t worry; it won’t get stolen,’ Bilbo said he put his hand on the door handle, glancing up at the bird. ‘Dwarven crafts aren’t very popular here in Hobbiton.’

If a bird could harrumph, then this raven very definitely gave it a solid try. ‘I never heard of such insolence in all my life!’

‘You must have lived a charmed life then,’ Bilbo said, opening the door. He really needed to get inside so he could he deal with this disappointment in his own silence.

‘You won’t hear from me again!’ Another affronted squawk sounded and then large wings swooped away behind him.

Bilbo shook his head and shut the door with a little more force than needed. 

The satchel fell to the floor as he covered his face with both his hands. His breath grew rough, echoing against his palms. His eyes felt wet and he wiped the pads of his finger over them harshly. He thought he had beaten it down, all of it, every smidgen of every memory from last summer. But now the lid had cracked, and it was all rising back up, just from the sight of that black bird in front of his home.

 

X—X

 

The next weeks Bilbo concentrated on taking stock of his inventory of plants and weeds, fresh and dried, trying to figure out what he needed to look for on his next trek to the Old Forest. 

It was early morning when he started out. The sun was just about to show itself, the birds were still slumbering in the trees, and he spied glimpses of quickly vanishing deer and other beasts as he passed by the abundant fields of the Shire. 

He breathed deeply, descending into a yawn. Though it was early summer, the morning air was still cool and refreshing and it made a good effort at waking him up. The warmth of his bed still lingered on his body and the taste of tea and toast was still in his mouth. 

Bilbo didn’t like being up this early. He was a hobbit who valued leisure and comfort most of all but the Old Forest was such a long way away, that it was only possible to complete his business there and return home before nightfall if he rose before the birds.

As he neared the roar of the Brandywine River, he began to hum lowly to himself, singing snippets from the song about water and all its many wondrous uses. He kept his eyes forward, ignoring the path which would have led him onto the Great East Road.

The dark forest finally loomed up in front of him. Thankfully, Bilbo didn’t need to go very far in among the moss-covered trees before coming across the first of the needed plants. He crouched down and worked steadily, picking the leaves carefully so as not to disturb either the new buds or the stem.

He stood up again, stretching his lower back and heard the rumble of his stomach. Time for a break. He knew of a small glade nearby where a small patch of light found its way through the treetops. Once he reached it, he stopped short at the edge.

In the middle of the glade were the remains of a small campfire. It had been smothered with dirt and rocks, but Bilbo could still feel some remaining heat in the ashy wood when he held his hand close to it. It must have been put out quite recently.

He sat down and dug out his simple cheese sandwiches from his pack. As he unwrapped them and started to eat, he surveyed the scene of the glade. On the other side of the fire there was a shape flattened into the moss, like someone had lain on their back there. It was dry while the moss around still held traces of the morning dew, so it was likely that someone had slept here in the glade overnight and put out their fire shortly before Bilbo had arrived.

He popped in the last bite of his sandwich and stood up. He looked around the trees, hoping to spot something moving in the forest, some flash of colour among the green and brown. A twig broke somewhere and he whirled around, his ears twitching to hear any sound at all besides his own elevated breathing.

Bilbo’s heartbeat joined in with his breath, their disjointed sound the only noise that he could hear. Birds didn’t venture below the tree tops in this part of the woods, their song wasn’t heard down here where the air was thick and slow. 

He should be afraid. Nobody knew that he was out here in the forest. He could disappear or – or be taken, and no one would know for days. He looked down at the shape in the moss. Not big but not small either, and they could have been lying in a crouched position all night. 

Bilbo turned around, trying to separate the high trunks from each other in his field of view. The green flickered into grey then brown then back again. Were they looking at him right now?

He should be afraid. But he wasn’t. His lips stretched out, and his quick breathing shaped into light laughter. This was the most excited he’d been in a long while. He laughed louder, hearing how it echoed oddly against the thick trees but still no other sound was heard.

How far away would they be by now? Were they headed towards the Shire or Bree? Maybe south into the wilds? If he went deeper into the woods, deeper than he had ever been before, would he find them? Would they find him?

Without thinking, he walked slowly from the glade, trampling over the indentation in the moss as he went. He stumbled over a gnarled branch which lay to the side of the well-worn path. Maybe he should just allow the forest to swallow him up. What a relief it would be to disappear into the darkness and the quiet, taking his chance on whatever was out there instead of returning home. And there would be no more knocks at his door, no more demands. 

No more memories.

_OOF_

The breath left his chest as it hit hard against the forest floor. He had fallen without noticing, his foot having become entangled with a bunch of long, spindly roots dragging behind him. He lay there for a while, staring into the brown dirt, all thoughts of strangers in the woods forgotten. His breath grew slower though his heart still beat against the walls of his chest, against the solid ground. Bilbo closed his eyes, squeezing them tightly against the world. 

When he opened them again, he focused onto a small spruce tree, no more than the length of a finger, sticking up in front of him. It was tough work, Bilbo thought, to be growing in such a shadowed part of the forest with only sporadic sunlight to rely on for nurture. But grow it did. If he came back to the forest next year, it would surely reach his middle. If he came back the year after that, it would have outgrown him.

If he came back.

Bilbo sighed and pushed away from the ground, rolling over on his side and rubbing his chest. That would leave a bruise, he was sure of it. His knees ached as he stood slowly up, one hand against the nearest tree trunk for support. After reaching down and freeing his foot, he checked the contents of his pack, making sure that the rough treatment hadn’t bruised the valuable plants too much.

He sighed as he looked around, searching for his usual path through the forest. He sped up his step, knowing that he would need to finish and get back home before dark. 

So, he turned his back on the deep woods, aiming for a spot of dappled sunlight instead.

 

X—X

 

It was dark when Bilbo trudged back up Bagshot Row, ignoring the golden light coming from the windows of the smials he passed on the way.

The door shut behind him, and he was alone in the darkness of Bag End. No fire had been burning since yesterday evening and thought it was early summer, a chill still lingered around the corners.

Bilbo carefully put down his sack of collected plants, planning to sort them out in the morning, and picked up a candlestick and a tinderbox from a nearby table. He struck a small flame, held the candle to it and made his way to his pantry. A cold slice of pork, mushroom and onion pie would do nicely for a late-night meal before he retired to his bed.

The filled plate and a small mug of ale was taken to his bedroom and placed on his nightstand next to the burning candle. Bilbo left the fire in his room unlit, only throwing another blanket over his bed to keep warm.

The last meal of the day was enjoyed with a chapter of a book before Bilbo blew out the candle, turned over in his bed and tried not to think about how sore his body – legs, knees and chest – would be tomorrow from today’s events.

He slept.

It was still dark when he opened his eyes again, trying to reorient himself as he blinked up at his ceiling. Something must have woken him but what? His eyes were heavy, and he rolled over on his stomach, fluffing up his pillow before sinking his head down into it again.

He was just on the edge of sleep when he heard it.

The knock on his door.

The fork rattled against the plate as he bumped into his nightstand, fumbling for the dressing gown that hung next to the bedroom door. The candle was left behind and the robe was tied lazily as he padded through his home, only yawning once as he tried to prepare himself for whoever needed his help at this hour of the night. 

His eyes were just getting used to the lack of light, dark-grey shadows and corners looming out from the darkness as he passed nimbly by the familiar furniture, when he stopped at the round door and pulled it open.

 

X—X

 

‘I know it’s late,’ Thorin said, ‘but your bench looks a lot more uncomfortable now than it did the last time.’

He could feel his cautious smile begin to fade at the edges as Bilbo only looked at him, his mouth opening and closing. His hand fell from where he held the door open and he staggered back a couple of steps.

Thorin hadn’t thought that meeting again like this would begin with a tearful embrace and an invitation to breakfast, but he also hadn’t thought that it would be…whatever this is.

‘Bilbo?’

Bilbo pressed his eyes together and opened them wide, blinking rapidly. ‘I--’ He exhaled a huge breath. ‘I- I need to sit down.’ And he turned around, leaving the door open behind him as he stumbled in the direction of the nearest parlour.

Thorin frowned and ducked through the door. He shouldered off his heavy pack, letting it drop to the floor next to Bilbo’s sack before heading to the parlour.

Bilbo was sitting stiffly in one of the armchairs in front of the fireplace, his eyes closed tightly and his head pressed back against the headrest as if he was willing his taut body to rest.

Within two steps, Thorin was kneeling down in front of the chair, his hand hovering over Bilbo’s on the armrest, not daring to touch just yet.

‘Bilbo.’ He gazed up at him, his eyes hungrily roaming over that long-missed face. Bilbo looked the same to Thorin’s eyes, perhaps a bit leaner, perhaps a bit more lined, but all of his memories and all his dreams didn’t come close to matching the wondrous reality of being this close to Bilbo once more.

Bilbo opened his eyes, blinking as he looked down at Thorin. ‘I was asleep,’ he murmured slowly. ‘I _am_ asleep.’

‘You’re not sleeping now,’ Thorin said.

Bilbo stilled, breathing slowly through his mouth. ‘You’re here.’ He looked down at Thorin with wide eyes.

Thorin touched a single finger to Bilbo’s knuckles, brushing slowly over them. ‘I’m here.’

A jolt went through Bilbo at the touch, loosening the stiffness of his back. ‘You’re here,’ he whispered.

Thorin grinned. ‘We sound like a couple of raven chicks repeating every new phrase they hear.’

Bilbo stared blindly at Thorin, not quite understanding what he was saying. He covered his face with his hand and his shoulders shook. ‘Oh, sweet Yavanna…,’ he whispered with a wavering tone to his voice.

Thorin realised that not much would be accomplished by talking to Bilbo while he was in this state. 

He licked his lips. ‘How about some tea?’ he asked, standing up in a fluid motion.

Bilbo made some kind of movement with his head, a mixture between a nod or shake or maybe just a kind of shrug. Thorin took it as confirmation.

The kitchen looked very much the same as when he had left almost a year ago. Without thinking, he grabbed the kettle and filled it from the water pail like he had done so many other times. The stove already had a couple of logs and all Thorin had to do was grab the tinderbox from its usual place on the shelf and light up the thin strips of kindling from the clay pot near the door to the back garden to start the fire.

As the stove heated up, he leaned against the kitchen counter. It was strange to actually be back here. He had walked through the rooms of Bag End so many times in his mind and in his dreams that he struggled to accept this as reality. That is, until he shifted from one foot to the other, feeling the soreness of his body from his long travel across Middle-earth.

‘You’re still here.’

Thorin looked up to see Bilbo standing in the doorway. ‘There are not many other places I could be at this time of the night.’

‘I thought I was dreaming, but then I saw your pack…’ Bilbo murmured, gesturing vaguely behind him.

‘How do you know you didn’t dream the pack as well?’

‘Because in all of my dreams, there is no need of a travelling pack,’ Bilbo said. ‘In all of my dreams, you never leave.’

There was a loud sound of bubbling water coming from behind him, and Thorin turned to find the kettle steaming busily.

He quickly took down the tea pot from its shelf but Bilbo’s favoured tea caddy wasn’t to be found.

‘Did you move the tea?’

‘Here.’ Bilbo moved to stand next to Thorin, reaching to another shelf next to the washing bowl. He opened the caddy and scooped the usual amount of tea leaves into the pot Thorin was holding.

‘Why did you move it?’ Thorin asked. ‘It makes more sense to keep it next to the tea pot.’

‘Yes, but when it’s close to the washing bowl I get to look at it more. And you know I’ve always liked this caddy.’ He looked down at it and smoothed one finger over the carved wood.

‘I know,’ Thorin murmured, looking at Bilbo’s bent head.

With a sigh, Bilbo replaced the tea caddy and took the pot from Thorin’s hands. ‘The water’s still boiling,’ he said, moving to pour it out. He hesitated before saying over his shoulder, ‘The cups are in the same place.’

Thorin nodded and took them from their cupboard to place on the small table in the kitchen. He sat down slowly, his eyes never leaving Bilbo as he placed the tea pot between them.

‘So,’ Bilbo said as he eased into the opposite seat, gathering his dressing gown around him as he did. ‘You’re not a dream.’

Thorin shook his head. ‘No.’

‘Or an illusion.’

‘Illusion?’ Thorin frowned.

‘You never know. I was in the woods today, and I might have brushed my fingers against the poisonous juices of a plant or tree before eating my sandwiches.’ Bilbo’s right hand reached out and lifted the tea pot, angling it over Thorin’s cup and then his own to pour the tea.

Thorin could feel himself smiling as he saw this familiar ritual. He shook his head. ‘I’m not an illusion. Or a dream.’

Bilbo folded his hands around his cup, leaning over it to let the steam rise lazily into his face, loosening the lingering sleep from his eyes. He took a deep breath and when he looked back up at Thorin, he was smiling. ‘This is wonderful news! How long are you staying? Did you want to experience another Shire summer?’ His smile grew until it reached his eyes, crinkling the corners. 

‘A Shire summer,’ Thorin said, slowly brushing his hand over the table until it lay between them. ‘And maybe a Shire autumn, a Shire winter and a Shire Spring.’ He looked up at Bilbo. ‘If you’re willing?’

Bilbo’s eyes widened. ‘A year? You want to stay for a year? But what about Erebor? What about your duties?’

Thorin’s hand curled slightly towards himself. ‘Didn’t the raven visit you?’

‘Raven?’ Bilbo frowned. ‘Yes, some months ago. A most imperious thing; kept talking about some _royal present_ , as if I needed any payment for having you stay with me.’ He chuckled until he saw Thorin’s face.

‘Is that all, the raven said?’ Thorin asked slowly.

‘Yes.’ Bilbo shrugged. ‘It didn’t say much else and left in quite a huff! Very easily offended, those Erebor ravens.’

‘I thought it would have prepared you for my coming, for what I had to say.’ Thorin focused down on his cup and breathed deeply. ‘Bilbo?’

‘Yes?’

‘I’ve renounced my claim to the crown of Erebor. I will never rule as king.’

Bilbo blinked rapidly, his cup of tea forgotten as he stared at Thorin. ‘Why?’

‘Because--’ The chair skidded over the floor as he sat back suddenly. ‘Because it would be of no benefit to anyone if I ruled. Least of all, Erebor. I never learnt, Bilbo, I never learnt how to be a king. My youth was taken by the sickness and I won’t—’ He closed his eyes, speaking clearly and slowly. ‘I won’t let the rest of my life be taken by something I have no want or aptitude for.’ He opened his eyes and gazed steadily into Bilbo’s amazed face. ‘Not now when I’ve come to know something else.’

There. Thorin had now come as close to saying it as he ever had before. He licked his lips as he looked at Bilbo, trying to gauge whether or not he understood. ‘So,’ he continued, ‘I have made my choice and have returned to the Shire.’

‘To stay?’ Bilbo whispered.

‘If you will have me.’

The chair creaked as Bilbo fell back against it. He stared at Thorin before breathing out a short laugh. ‘I’m still not completely convinced that I’m not asleep in my bed right now.’

Thorin finally dared to reach out completely, laying his hand over Bilbo’s on the table. ‘You’re not sleeping, Bilbo.’

Bilbo looked down at their hands. ‘No, I’m not, am I?’ He broke off, stifling a yawn. ‘Oh, I’m sorry…’

Thorin had noticed how Bilbo’s blinks had become longer and longer and how his body slightly swayed as his muscles struggled to keep him sitting upright. It looked like the energy from the surprise of Thorin’s arrival was wearing off and the fatigue of the day was overtaking Bilbo once more.

‘Maybe we should talk more when we’ve both had a rest,’ he said.

Bilbo nodded as he squeezed Thorin’s hand. ‘If I go back to bed now, you won’t disappear by morning, will you?’

Thorin grinned. ‘I wouldn’t dream of it.’

 

X—X

 

Bilbo woke again. The ceiling of his bedroom was golden-yellow now; instead of the dark-grey it had been when he had last seen it. He lay quietly for a moment, listening for any sound that may have stirred him from his sleep. Then he stretched and turned over, shutting his eyes and trying to chase the quickly vanishing dream. Thorin had been there, had sat in his kitchen drinking tea and telling him that he had chosen Bilbo over everything else. What a lovely dream. And maybe Bilbo could snatch some of it back if he pressed deep enough into his pillow.

His eyes had almost fallen shut when he heard a bang from the front of his smial.

Pushing up from his bed, the first instance of oddness was that his dressing gown was lying over his bed rather than hanging next to the door. The next was that the plate, fork and cup from last night were gone from his nightstand. Bilbo stood staring down at it, frowning as he tried to remember if he had done that before going to bed. He looked up and then noticed his door. He had a habit of keeping it open when he was alone, liking the air to travel freely through his smial. But now it was closed.

_CLUNK_

Bilbo stiffened at the sound of something hitting the floor outside. And then he saw it, next to the closed door. His sack with all of his collected plants from yesterday neatly placed on the floor, the flap pulled back to give them some air. Bilbo knew without a doubt that he had dropped it as soon as he had come home. And he remembered seeing it in the hall last night next to Thorin’s pack before going to Thorin in the kitch…

At once Bilbo was more awake than he had ever been before in his life. He tore open his bedroom door, striding down the hallway before coming to a stop at seeing Thorin bent over a good-sized pile of packs and packages in the middle of the parlour floor.

‘Oh, did I wake you?’ Thorin pressed his hands against his back as he stood back up, stretching as he smiled at Bilbo. ‘I tried to do my unpacking as quietly as possible.’ He stepped around the pile, his smile widening as he came closer to Bilbo. ‘Good morning.’ His voice was warm.

Bilbo blinked. ‘Good morning.’

In the light of the day, Thorin’s presence in Bag End was somehow both much more real and much more absurd to Bilbo’s eyes. Looking over him, lit as he was from the sunrays of the window, Thorin could be made of wonderfully solid flesh or he could be a trick of the light, a shadow thrown from the tree outside mingled up with Bilbo’s memories.

He stepped closer, lifting one hand slowly in front of him. He stopped an inch away from Thorin’s chest, already feeling the tingling of the expected touch. He took a deep breath and pressed forward. And then he felt Thorin’s heartbeat beneath his palm.

Thorin’s hand covered Bilbo’s. ‘I’m still real.’

‘And do you still--’ Bilbo’s eyes flickered between their hands and Thorin’s eyes. ‘I mean, are you alright? With eating and seeing and—’

Thorin stepped closer, pressing their hands between them. ‘Yes, Bilbo. I’m alright.’

Bilbo closed his eyes shortly, focusing on the thump, thump, thump of Thorin’s heart. 

When he opened them again, he looked up at Thorin with a smile. ‘I’m glad you’re back.’

Thorin opened his mouth to answer when the sound of something soft hit the floor of Bilbo’s parlour. Bilbo glanced around Thorin and saw one of Thorin’s sacks settling next to the large box from where it had slid off. As he looked, he realised that the entire pile of packages, sacks and bags were a great deal bigger than when Thorin had left almost a year ago.

‘And it seems as though you’ve brought half the kingdom of Erebor with you,’ Bilbo said with a raised eyebrow up at Thorin.

‘Yes.’ Thorin was still looking down at their still-clasped hands. He blinked rapidly as he looked up. ‘I mean, no. There’s the still more outside. The ponies…’ He trailed off, waving a hand towards the open door. 

Bilbo’s eyes widened. ‘Ponies? As in more than one?’

‘Well, I couldn’t expect Bellis to carry it all and me as well the whole way from Erebor,’ Thorin said as he watched Bilbo let go of his hand and move around the pile in the middle of the room to reach the door to the outside.

The two ponies stood side by side, tethered in front of Bilbo’s gate. Bellis’s black mane shone in the summer sun as she bent her head to reach the grass and weeds peaking out through the fence. Her movement was uninhibited as she carried only a saddle on her back unlike the pony next to her.

‘That’s Kurdu from the Erebor stables,’ Thorin said as he joined Bilbo at the open door. ‘She was given to me by my sister as a farewell present.’

Bilbo nodded as he looked at the remaining packs hanging from Kurdu’s back. ‘We should finish unpacking her.’ He gathered the sides of his robe, tying the belt more tightly to keep them together before stepping outside, Thorin following close behind him.

‘Hello, Bellis.’ Bilbo rubbed her nose, smiling as she blew out a short breath in greeting. ‘Back in the Shire again, are you?’

Bellis made no reply but stretched out her neck, searching the pockets of Bilbo’s robe for anything tastier than common garden weeds.

Bilbo pushed her away and turned to see Thorin untying the last of the packs from Kurdu. The Erebor pony moved more easily, her skin shivering at the new freedom. She ambled past Bilbo, joining Bellis at the fence.

‘Here,’ Bilbo grabbed hold of one of the packs from Thorin’s hand. ‘Let me take it.’ He almost stumbled as the weight of the thing dropped, the muscles in his arms straining to not let it fall. ‘Oof! I want to correct my earlier statement: I don’t think you brought half of Erebor; I think you’ve brought the _entirety_ of Erebor! Mines and all!’

Thorin laughed, supporting the bottom of Bilbo’s pack until he had it settled over his shoulder. ‘I may have overdone it slightly but well – you’ll see when we get inside.’

The pile in Bilbo’s parlour now spilled out even more, a sizable hurdle which Thorin and Bilbo inched around while preparing to share their breakfast. The ponies had had their reigns and saddles removed and had been led back to Bilbo’s garden, tied close to the smial and a long way from his prized flowers.

While they ate their breakfast, Thorin’s eyes kept travelling from the table to the pile in the parlour, seemingly taking a mental stock of what he had brought with him again and again. He said stiffly in his chair, his body ready to leap up at the slightest prompting.

Bilbo scraped the butter dish, spreading it over the remains of his bread before popping it in his mouth. He lifted the tea pot, swirling it to feel the slosh of the tea. Just one cup full, he thought. Definitely no more than that.

‘Do you mind if I…?’ He gestured with the tea pot towards his own cup as he looked at Thorin.

Thorin blinked as he looked away from the pile towards Bilbo. ‘No, go ahead,’ he said absentmindedly, his gaze turning once more.

Bilbo leaned back in his chair, studying Thorin as he sipped the last of his tea. It was strange seeing him again, framed against the arches of Bag End. But at the same time it was as if the last year had changed nothing, as if their separation hadn’t happened at all: the summer sun was still shining through the windows, they still shared their breakfast in the same manner, and Thorin looked much the same as he had done a year ago. But there was a slight awkwardness in the way they moved around each other, in the way they spoke. Jokes had been shared but Bilbo had felt himself forcing his laughter, trying to rebuild their shared connection as quickly as possible.

It seemed as if they were both trying to figure out whether a year was a long time or a short one. After all, Bilbo thought, they had now spent more time apart than they had spent together.

Thorin watched Bilbo drain the last tea from his cup. ‘Finished?’

Bilbo nodded, setting down the cup and pushing his plate away from him. ‘Yes.’

Thorin pushed his chair back with a quick shove. ‘Come on then.’

Before Bilbo had even begun to rise from his chair, Thorin was already kneeling down next to the pile, picking out what he wanted to unpack first.

Bilbo dithered behind him, watching the muscles in the broad back flex as Thorin reached to the far side to fish out a small thin packet the length and breadth of two good-sized carrots. ‘Maybe we should start by getting your clothes settled in your bedroom,’ Bilbo said. ‘You’ll need those in the morning. The other things can wait more easily.’

Thorin turned his head and looked up at him, his eyes shining with barely concealed glee. ‘No.’ He shook his head though he smiled. ‘Sit with me?’ He padded the floor next to him.

Bilbo studied that upturned face. ‘Alright,’ he said slowly, lowering himself to sit like cross-legged in front of the pile and waited while Thorin unpacked the small package.

‘I had these made before I left.’ He pulled out a small stack of parchment and handed them to Bilbo. ‘For you.’

Bilbo’s eyebrows rose. ‘Me?’ He took the present and turned it over to look. ‘Oh, Thorin. Is this Erebor?’

The picture seemed to have been made by smudging coal on the paper but the detail and the depth was exquisite. It was the front of the mountain with the heads and figures of dwarves carved into the rock. In the middle was the main door, large and sturdy as if it had always been there and always would be.

He could feel Thorin inching closer to him on the floor, their shoulders brushing as Thorin leaned over to the look. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘that’s the main entrance of the kingdom, the one my father liked foreign dignitaries to enter through. I think he wanted them to be stared down by the might of the great dwarves of old before they reached his throne,’ he finished with a small smirk.

Bilbo looked up from the arresting picture to meet Thorin’s gaze. ‘I haven’t said it, but I’m sorry about your father, Thorin.’ The parchments in his hands rustled as he bumped his shoulder against Thorin. ‘Truly, I am.’

Thorin looked down. ‘Thank you.’ Bilbo could hear him breathing in and out once before he lifted his head and said, ‘Look at the next one.’

Bilbo did. ‘Is this the throne room?’ he said, taking in the image of the vast room.

Thorin nodded. ‘Yes, my father’s throne. And now my nephew’s. Well, my nephew’s future throne.’

‘But then who’s—’ Bilbo interrupted himself. ‘Your sister, of course.’ He nodded. ‘I remember you talking about her.’

‘Dís,’ Thorin said warmly. ‘She will rule in her son – Fíli’s – name until he comes of age.’

Bilbo studied the picture. ‘It’s a magnificent place. I have never seen anything built so large in all my life.’

‘I know you haven’t. That was why I wanted to show you.’ Thorin’s voice was even warmer now as he sat so close to Bilbo.

Bilbo smiled up at him. ‘Thank you.’ He turned the page and stared at the bold strokes of black coal. At first, it seemed like a night sky with the only light coming from tiny dots of stars. But the more he looked, the more the darkness seemed to become nuanced, taking the shape of shelves of rock lit up by strings of lights.

‘That’s the biggest mine,’ Thorin explained, one of his fingers reaching over to trace the left side of the picture. ‘And the deepest. There is darkness down there that is hard to explain to someone who’s never experienced it. It is more than just a moonless night. It is all consuming.’ He looked around Bilbo’s smial. ‘A flame bright enough to light your entire home would be swallowed up down there. But I never feared it, the darkness. Even in my youth when other dwarflings scared each other with tales of what lurked in the unknown and the unseen, I never felt that fear. That is…’ Thorin looked up at Bilbo. ‘That is, until I returned from the Shire. The first time my youngest sister-son – Kíli - brought me down there again, I could feel my heart racing and my legs shaking. I remember hurrying after him and focusing on some embroidered detail on the back of his collar instead of facing outward into that great void surrounding us.’ He focused into Bilbo’s eyes. ‘It seems that learning how to see the light made me more wary of the dark.’

Bilbo became aware that he had been holding his breath while Thorin had spoken and he forced a breath out and in before asking, ‘Did you never return to the mines?’ He looked down at the picture, trying to imagine the enormity of the place.

‘I did. And I wish this picture could show you why. Once I had got used to the darkness, I suddenly noticed glimmers in the wall whenever I moved my torch. What I thought had been a solid, grey rock, well, here,’ he said as he picked up a heavy-looking sack from the pile, dropping it into Bilbo’s waiting hands. ‘Look for yourself.’

Bilbo upended the sack, grabbing hold of the rock tumbling into his grip. It was dark grey, the size of a large potato but nothing remarkable. Bilbo frowned as he looked up at Thorin. ‘I don’t…’

‘Hold it up,’ Thorin said, gesturing to the beam of light coming from the parlour window.

Bilbo shook his head but he did as ordered. And then the stone changed before his eyes. Sparkles suddenly awoke in the dull, dark surface. It was mostly greens and reds, the small lights winking at him as he turned it in his hand.

‘Astounding,’ Bilbo breathed. ‘I never saw such a thing in all my life. Is this what you call an ore of gems?’

Thorin chuckled next to him. ‘Hardly. I don’t think my sister would have allowed me to take it if it had been. No, these are just natural occurring deposits in the main rock. Impossible to mine for any kind of result but,’ he leaned forward into Bilbo’s space, ‘but still beautiful, don’t you think?’

‘Absolutely. I can understand why you would want to see the mines again.’

‘Not just to see, Bilbo, but to _experience_. Even the smell down there,’ he shook his head, obviously trying to find the words to explain. ‘Do you remember that day we spent in the Old Forest? That hot day when we drunk from the lake? Well, the smell’s like that taste: earthy and elemental. And then there were the sounds of the miners working, the sound of metal hitting rock echoing out into that vast cavern. It sounded old, full of the history of the dwarves. The first time I heard that, really _heard_ it, I felt proud of what my people had achieved, of how we had bent that mighty space to our will. It was the sound of determination, of industry, of overcoming everything in our path.’

Bilbo looked from the rock in one hand to the picture in the other, trying to understand, to imagine.

Thorin blinked, his eyes focusing away from his memories and onto Bilbo next to him. ‘And you gave me that. You gave me back my home, my family, my history.’ He gestured to Bilbo’s hands. ‘And I wanted to give you something, as well.’

Bilbo swallowed. ‘Thank you. I- I shall put these in a place of pride in my library.’ He rubbed a thumb over the edge of the smudges of coal. ‘Perhaps I’ll even make a separate section of dwarven history and knowledge with the pictures framed above it.’ He placed the parchments carefully aside, making sure not to bend the edges as he did.

‘But there’s more,’ Thorin said, sitting up on his knees to pick up a square metal box tied shut with several rounds of string.

Bilbo sat back and watched those broad fingers nimbly pick out the tight knots and unravel the whole thing. He had often wondered how Thorin’s braids could be so small and intricate when his fingers were so large and seemingly ungainly. But now they proved to be quite nimble. Bilbo could feel his face heat as he quickly looked away.

‘It looks like they mostly survived the trip,’ Thorin said as he held out the open box ‘Try one.’

The box was lined with a soft fabric and in the middle were small, light brown biscuits, some of them broken in half and some of them smashed to crumbs. 

‘Is this an Erebor speciality?’ Bilbo asked as he picked out a nice-looking piece.

‘It’s the only one which could survive the trip.’ Thorin picked up a battered piece and turned it in his hand. ‘But just barely.’

Bilbo grinned before popping the biscuit in his mouth, chewing and tasting. There were the expected flavours of rich butter and burnt sugar. He turned the mouthful over with his tongue. Maybe a touch of honey as well? And cloves among the spices?

He smiled at Thorin as he prepared to swallow. ‘Very good--’ But then it hit him: a touch of heat on the back of his tongue, spreading out into his mouth. Not burning but warm and spicy. It was like something he had never tasted before.

‘What is that? That heat?’

Thorin swallowed his own mouthful. ‘Ginger. It comes from somewhere in the East, I think. Look,’ he pushed back the flap of another bag, pulling out a small container. He opened it to show Bilbo a yellowish white powder. ‘The head cook at Erebor gave me this.’ He pulled out a stack of folded papers from the same bag. ‘And I brought recipes as well. Here’s the one for the biscuits,’ he handed Bilbo a page, ‘and then there’s this one which uses the ginger together with chicken in a stew. Oh, and you can also add it to your tea!’ He handed Bilbo another page.

Bilbo looked down at the neatly written lines of ingredients and directions as he thumbed through them all. There must have been at least 20 different recipes. He shook his head in amazement. ‘Did the cook give you all of these?’

‘No, he never learnt to write. I had him dictate them to a scribe, and then one of our scholars translated the text into Westron before one of the senior scribes wrote them down as you see them here.’

Again, Bilbo stared down at what Thorin had given him. ‘That’s a lot of effort.’

Thorin shrugged. ‘I wanted you to taste it. Ginger, I mean.’

Bilbo could still taste the heat in his mouth as he played with the corner of one of the recipes. He looked up at the pile in front of them. It was still large, packages piled upon packages, bulging packs and tightly wound sacks. ‘Thorin?’

‘Yes?’ His voice was low but close.

‘Do you--’ Bilbo licked his lips. ‘Do you have anymore surprises for me?’

Thorin looked away. ‘There’s the wool from the mountain sheep,’ he said pointing at a stuffed sack. ‘It’s the softest you could possibly imagine, and I’m sure it would make a fine scarf for you come winter if you could find someone to spin it into yarn. Then there’s the sheet music I bought from the musicians in a tavern in Dale.’ He looked back at Bilbo. ‘I hope you can get someone to play it for you, Bilbo, because it’s such a beautiful tune. And I- I wanted you to hear it.’ He looked down at his hands, pinching his thumb between two fingers. ‘I also brought some dwarven crafts, gold ornaments, iron tools, stone cuttings. And books from the library of Erebor, some of them from as far away as Gondor.’

Bilbo’s head whirled as he looked at Thorin’s bent head. ‘Anything more?’

‘No, not much else. Just the winter robe with the velvet lining and the selection of dried plants from the Erebor apothecary with Óin’s instructions on their various properties and uses.’

Even though Bilbo was still sitting down, he felt the need to lean backwards, almost falling before his hands hit the floor behind him. ‘Goodness…’ he whispered as his gaze flickered from Thorin to the pile.

‘It’s a lot to take in at once, I know,’ Thorin said, ‘but there was just so much I wanted to give you, wanted to show you.’ His voice grew deeper. ‘So much I wanted you to experience. And I knew that you probably never would unless I brought it to you.’

Bilbo nodded. He understood that feeling and understanding finally gave him the courage to ask.

‘I asked you--’ Bilbo looked up into Thorin’s eyes, a small smile pulling at his lips. ‘At least, I _think_ I asked you last night why you had renounced the crown. But I didn’t ask you why you had come back to me.’

They were still sitting so close that Bilbo could almost follow the spread of blush across Thorin’s cheeks.

‘You know, Bilbo,’ Thorin murmured. ‘You _must_ know.’

Bilbo looked up at him, feeling like he was balancing on the edge of a precipice. But he was ready to fall. ‘Tell me. Please.’

Thorin looked away and took a deep breath. ‘When I rode towards Erebor almost a year ago, there was a point about halfway between your home and my father’s, where I started to doubt what I had experienced during that summer. Not that I was cured, of course - that was as plain as the road in front of me. But what had happened between us, what I had felt, what I thought you had felt. The more distance I put between us, the more everything became muddled and unclear.’

Bilbo frowned.

‘I thought,’ Thorin continued, ‘- maybe because everything was still new to me – but I thought I had misunderstood… everything, really. How you felt but mainly what I felt.’

‘How so?’

Thorin blew out an agitated breath as he seemed to search for his words. ‘You remember me telling you about dwarves and their Ones?’

Bilbo nodded. ‘Two halves of a whole, destined to be together since the first creation,’ he said shortly.

‘Well, how could I be your One when I left without you?’ There was a hint of desperation in Thorin’s voice before he softened it. ‘How could you be _my_ One when you let me leave?’

Bilbo crossed his arms in front of him. ‘Thorin, those are myths and stories,’ he said. ‘Listen to them and learn what you can from them, but don’t let them rule your life. Don’t let them dictate what--’ Bilbo pressed his lips together. ‘What love is.’

‘No, I know that!’ Thorin lifted one arm lamely, obviously wanting to catch some part of Bilbo before he moved away completely. ‘I know that now, Bilbo. But, on the Great East Road with no other company but my own thoughts, I doubted. I held everything I knew together with the things I had been told and I couldn’t make them match.’ His hand brushed over the floor, just touching the edge of Bilbo’s fingers. ‘And I had no Bilbo there to explain it to me, to talk with, to give me the words I needed to make sense of it all.’ His voice had become incredibly warm and his eyes soft as he gazed at Bilbo.

Bilbo lifted his fingers slightly, threading them between Thorin’s. ‘I missed you, too,’ he whispered.

‘And there’s the whole point.’ Thorin covered Bilbo’s hand completely. ‘If it had been some simple infatuation, some fancy born out of our enforced intimacy and gratitude for what you had done for me, then I would have forgotten you. A few months in my own home with my own family and my own people, and you would have been nothing more than a distant, pleasant recollection of a Shire summer.’ He leaned closer. ‘But I never forgot you, Bilbo. Every day away from you only made my memories of you become stronger, not fainter. And I finally understood what I must have known all along.’

Bilbo held his breath, waiting.

‘So, I had to come back even if you didn’t feel the same.’ The corners of Thorin’s eyes crinkled. ‘Though I now have an inkling that you do. Because I know that I love you, Bilbo. Not because you healed me, not because you helped me, not because of some ancient idea about a predestined bond, but because…’ He gave a small smile. ‘Because I love you. And I don’t want to imagine the rest of my life without you.’

Bilbo’s heart was beating hard now, his breath racing to keep up. He swallowed and breathed in and out, trying to hold on to it before it sped out of his control. He could still taste the ginger in his mouth, could still see the glimmer in the rock from Erebor.

‘That’s--’ He licked his lips. ‘That’s good.’

The floorboards creaked as Thorin moved closer. ‘Good?’

And when Bilbo looked up at, he felt his face fall into a smile he hadn’t been able to muster for a long time now. ‘Very, very good.’

Thorin was closer. ‘Good enough to let me stay?’

Bilbo leaned into him. ‘So good that I never want you to leave without me again.’

Their whispers didn’t carry far now, there was no need when two shared one breath.

‘Bilbo?’ Thorin’s murmur was almost a touch on Bilbo’s cheek. ‘Can I kiss you?’

Bilbo smiled as he quirked one eyebrow. ‘On the mouth or…?’

‘Anywhere you’ll let me.’

Bilbo licked his lips and angled his face upwards. ‘Yes.’

When their lips touched, some vague romantic idea teased at the back of Bilbo’s mind that the world should fall away, that everything should blur in contrast to the perfect image of lovers reunited. That there would be nothing for Bilbo but the touch of Thorin’s lips.

But the world didn’t fade at their kiss. It bloomed around Bilbo. The sunlight hitting the nape of his neck was delightfully warm as he arched closer to Thorin. The sound of his foot kicking a small chair across the floor was loud as he scrambled up on his knees, trying to press more against Thorin’s touch. He could still taste the breakfast they had shared, could smell sweat and pony from Thorin’s hair. 

He could feel Thorin, could finally feel everything.

Bilbo could even feel Thorin’s beard tickling against his nose and he broke off with a grin. ‘Sorry,’ he giggled, brushing a hand over his lips. ‘But your beard…’

Thorin chuckled as he ran a finger along the top of his lip. ‘It’s hard to keep it trimmed to the standards of a respectable hobbit while on the road.’

‘Respectable?!’ Bilbo laughed as he hid his face against Thorin’s neck. ‘You’re lucky that I love you enough to let you call me such a _ghastly_ word!’

Thorin nosed into Bilbo’s curls, humming in pleasure. ‘Yes, I am,’ he murmured, pecking a quick kiss to Bilbo’s lips.

‘Do you realise that that’s only the fourth kiss we’ve shared,’ Bilbo said, ‘not counting the ones to various other body parts, that is.’

Thorin smirked. ‘Four? That’s not a lot over the course of a year.’ He kissed Bilbo again, lingering over his bottom lip. ‘Shall we try for an even hundred before lunch?’

‘Lunch?’ Bilbo’s chest hit Thorin as he slung an arm around his neck. ‘I think we can manage that before second breakfast,’ he said, pulling Thorin into him once more until they both sprawled completely against the floor, the pile in the parlour forgotten as they made up for lost time.

 

X—X

 

The raven circled once more over Bag End, making note of the unsaddled ponies, the smoke from the chimney and the closed door, before it made a grand swoop in an easterly direction.

It flew quickly for it carried an important message: Thorin, son of Thráin, son of Thrór, the prince who was never satisfied, the king who refused his throne, had finally reached his home.

 

X—X

 

End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who's read, kudos'ed and commented - and thank you for your patience while I finished the last chapter!
> 
> This fic has been given such a warm reception by you all and I'm incredibly grateful for it.
> 
> And there's more fan art: Fishy drew [Bilbo and Thorin's final moment together on the parlour floor](http://fishfingersandscarves.tumblr.com/post/129987501905/do-you-realise-that-thats-only-the-fourth-kiss).

**Author's Note:**

> [My tumblr](http://hildyj.tumblr.com/)


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